Pioneer 2 by EPSRC

PIONEER

New Power Generation

Winter 2009

www.epsrc.ac.uk

Creating the wave of engineers to make wind energy work

DIGITAL INCLUSION / IMPROVING AIRCRAFT RELIABILITY / ENERGY SCAVENGING SENSORS

Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

EPSRC: funding the future The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) is the main UK government agency for funding research and training in engineering and the physical sciences – from mathematics to materials science and from information technology to structural engineering. Working with UK universities, it invests around £740m a year in world class research and training to promote future economic development and improved quality of life.

Get involved: EPSRC’s portfolio of research projects includes more than 2,000 partnerships with organisations from the industrial, business and charitable sectors.

Contact us: We have dedicated sector teams working to understand the research and skills needs of their sectors and to help connect businesses with university expertise.

More than 35 per cent of our research funding includes collaborative partners.

Construction, Environment and Water Contact: Claire Tansley, Tel: 01793 444237

EPSRC’s knowledge transfer goals include: •

•

PIONEER is EPSRC’s quarterly magazine. It highlights how EPSRC-funded research and training is helping to tackle global challenges and the major issues facing individuals, business and the UK economy.

•

Enhancing opportunities for business/university research collaborations to accelerate knowledge transfer.

Aerospace and Defence Contact: Simon Crook, Tel: 01793 444425

Electronics Contact: Matthew Ball, Tel: 01793 444351 Healthcare Contact: Claire Wagstaffe, Tel: 01793 444586 Manufacturing Contact: Pilar Sepulveda, Tel: 01793 444068 Power Contact: Stephen Elsby, Tel: 01793 444458

Ensuring postgraduate skills meet the needs of business through increased demand-led and collaborative training.

Process Industries Contact: Nicolas Guernion, Tel: 01793 444343

Strengthening partnerships with business to improve knowledge transfer – including the development of strategic partnerships with research-intensive companies.

Transport Systems Contact: Richard Bailey, Tel: 01793 444423

You can find out more about EPSRC and how you can work with us by visiting our website www.epsrc.ac.uk

Software, Media and Communications Contact: Pamela Mason, Tel: 01793 444268

If you can’t find a sector relevant to you, please email: sectors@epsrc.ac.uk EPSRC Polaris House North Star Avenue Swindon SN2 1ET E-mail: pioneer@epsrc.ac.uk Switchboard: 01793 444000 Helpline: 01793 444100 Website: www.epsrc.ac.uk

The views and statements expressed in this publication are those of the authors and not necessarily those of EPSRC unless explicitly stated. Some of the research highlighted may not yet have been peer-reviewed. © Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council. Reproduction permitted only if source is acknowledged. ISSN 1758-7727

PIONEER Editor: Christopher Buratta E-mail: christopher.buratta@epsrc.ac.uk Tel: 01793 444305 Editorial Assistance: Rachel Blackford E-mail: rachel.blackford@epsrc.ac.uk Tel: 01793 444459 Mailing changes: pioneer@epsrc.ac.uk Contributors Maria Burke, Tony Newton. Design and production Doggett Jones Ltd

CONTENTS

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

FEATURES 12 Cover story The wind energy training centre powering the quest to meet renewable targets

16 Reading the signal The data analysis systems that are keeping planes flying high and buses running on time

18 Power from oysters

Can a new wave power device harness the power of Scotland’s seas

22 Talking nano How the public helped shape nanotechnology research for healthcare

24 Good vibrations Energy scavenging sensors that power themselves

REGULARS 4 Leader 5 Briefings

Safer breast screening, an award-winning eco-car, making the beautiful game even better and combating environmental disaster

“We presented the results to Boeing. They were impressed with the technology and that was one of the factors cited for choosing Rolls-Royce”

11 Interview John Hand outlines the ambitions of the digital economy research programme

28 Viewpoint Professor Alan Newell on the need to build a digitally inclusive society

30 Profile World-leading security expert Gloria Laycock talks about her achievements, inspiration and... her new high-tech kitchen

Investing for long term prosperity s we enter 2009, it is clear we will continue to face tough economic conditions for the foreseeable future. The global downturn shows no sign of abating and its effects are being felt by everyone. Science and engineering has a vital role to play in helping to improve and combat this situation and in providing the means for longterm economic prosperity. The research breakthroughs supported by EPSRC are allowing UK companies to improve their competitiveness through the use of new technologies, processes and products, and our extensive support for training continues to ensure the UK has the skills it needs to thrive. In December, we announced a £250m investment in new centres for doctoral training to meet challenges both now and in the future. Forty four new centres will provide doctoral training to tackle issues including climate change, energy, our ageing population and high-tech crime. The centres will also improve UK strengths in traditional sectors such as manufacturing, automotive and aerospace, and nurture emerging areas such as computer animation and digital media. One centre, specialising in Wind Energy Systems, is the cover story in this edition of PIONEER. The skilled people it will train over the coming years will help ensure the UK leads

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

l-r: PhD student Susanna Fleming, Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson and EPSRC chief executive Professor David Delpy launch the new £250m training centre initiative

the world in wind energy technologies and, more importantly, help ensure we realise the potential of this abundant renewable energy source. Combined with continued support for our established doctoral training routes, the centres will give the UK the diverse range of skills needed to tackle the new challenges we face.

Pioneers09

Connecting the world-class research we fund with industry is also a key goal for EPSRC. As part of this work we are staging Pioneers09 – a showcase science event that will bring together forward thinking researchers and business people who have a passion for innovative science and technology.

The event, at Olympia on 4 March, is free to attend and will showcase some of the UK’s latest research through a range of interactive stands. It will be a great networking opportunity for business and researchers. For more information visit http://pioneers.epsrc.ac.uk By sustaining the UK as a world-leader in research and ensuring we have a wealth of talented, well-trained scientists and engineers, we will help attract and retain investment in a wide range of sectors, improve long-term economic stability and improve the quality of life for all. David Delpy EPSRC chief executive

briefings BALANCED BRIDGES INTERACTIVE FOOTBALL FANS HOT CAR CONCEPT BETTER BREAST SCREENING CHANGING SKYLINES CRIME FIGHTING MOBILE MEDICS MANAGING ENVIRONMENTAL RISK BREAKTHROUGH CASH

Bridge wobble hangs in the balance

NEW WORK has revealed the Millennium Bridge’s wobble was caused by the way people stay balanced – rather than by synchronised footsteps as previously thought.

The work, carried out by a team at the University of Bristol with EPSRC support, will help improve future bridge safety. The London Millennium Bridge, linking St Paul’s Cathedral to the Tate Modern, was forced to close shortly after it opened in 2000 as it experienced an alarming sway. It had been thought the ‘wobble’ had been caused by people synchronising footsteps with each other. But the Bristol team discovered it was caused by the way pedestrians alter their motion to retain balance when walking on a moving structure. The researchers found that pedestrians walking randomly and keeping balance as normal could cause a large bridge to sway. The same interaction was observed on other bridges, including Bristol’s Clifton Suspension Bridge, and so is not related to structural design but to pedestrian behaviour. The work could be used to avoid similar problems on bridges in future. Dr John MacDonald, senior lecturer in civil engineering and an EPSRC advanced research fellow, said: “It is clear the motion of the bridge affects the force of the pedestrian, rather than the pedestrians simply applying an external force.”

Download now... To hear more about stories featured in PIONEER and listen to leading reseachers exhibiting at Pioneers09 talk about their work download EPSRC’s PIONEER podcast: www.epsrc.ac.uk/videoaudio

briefings

FOOTBALL FANATICS HELP DEVELOP TECHNOLOGIES FIFTEEN football fans will land their dream job as part of a new project to improve the experience of watching sport.

Researchers at the University of Glasgow are recruiting fans to take part in a study, funded by EPSRC, which will see them being paid to watch matches in the comfort of their own homes. Academics will film the spectators and analyse how they interact to develop new mobile technologies that will help fans communicate with each other. The £400,000 project is being carried out by the Glasgow team in collaboration with the University of California, San Diego and Microsoft. The researchers hope the results of the study will enable them to develop software and technologies that will make it easier for fans to share their experiences and opinions of sports events through photographs and videos on their mobile phones. Stuart Reeves, research assistant on the project, said: “We want to find out what fans talk about and their reactions to events at a game.

The idea is to give some power back to sports fans so they can share information Stuart Reeves

“We will then use this information to design data-sharing applications which enable photo-sharing and blogging, for example in real-time, using wi-fi, GPS and 3G technology. “The idea is to give some power back to sports fans so they can share information and make their own record and analysis of matches and get more out of the experience.” He added: “We’ve found that sports fans are very insightful and are skilled at knowing what is going on in a game. They are often highly critical too, but that is part of supporting a team so we want to design a system that will support their debate and their commitment.” The team will pay fans £5 each for being filmed in groups as they watch a game and £10 for an hour-long interview on the role football plays in their lives. Some will also be given an Apple iPhone on loan as part of a month-long field trial of new software systems.

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New engine slashes CO2 emissions

A CAR engine, developed with EPSRC support, has delivered a 15 per cent reduction in carbon emissions. The HOTFIRE project, a collaboration between Lotus Engineering, University College London, Loughborough University and Continental Powertrain, developed a concept car that sprays fuel directly into the cylinders of a petrol engine rather than using a fuel/air mix.

The research has resulted in an engine that reduces fuel consumption by 15 per cent. HOTFIRE won the automotive category at The Engineer Technology and Innovation Awards 2008 and has attracted interest from a number of major car manufacturers. Mike Kimberley, chief executive officer of Group Lotus Plc, said: “Project HOTFIRE is an excellent example of an industry and academic partnership producing world-class research for the benefit of the environment and the car buyer.” He added: “The most important part of the project is that the technologies developed are available and affordable and as we have already shown can be easily implemented into next generation models to produce lower emissions.” The HOTFIRE system combines direct injection with a variable valve operation, which enables the amount of air sucked into the engine to be varied without reducing efficiency as it can use a smaller engine that can then receive a boost from a turbocharger. The efficiency boost comes from reducing what are known as ‘throttling losses’ – when the throttle in a car is closed, the air intake is partly closed off and the engine has to work hard to pull against a partial vacuum.

Help to ensure city skylines can combat climate change

Radar breast screening technology could improve cancer detection

The University of Reading’s meteorology department is leading the five-year study to help understand how London’s existing and new buildings directly affect, and need to adapt to, climate change. Dr Janet Barlow, who is leading the project, said: “Most of the world’s population live in cities, which are already responsible for 80 per cent of the world’s carbon emissions. London’s energy consumption soared during the 2003 heat wave as offices and public buildings switched on air conditioning systems across the city. “Such extreme temperatures are predicted to be a regular occurrence by the 2050s, at which point 70 per cent of our current buildings will still be around. They are not designed to function in what will be the equivalent of the current-day Mediterranean climate.” The funding will create the Advanced Climate Technology Urban Atmospheric Laboratory (ACTUAL), which will investigate the impact that buildings themselves have on London’s changing climate. Structures such as the BT Tower will be used to investigate sustainable Dr Janet Barlow adaptation of buildings to a warmer climate. Results will be integrated directly into engineering and policy areas which impact on urban infrastructure. Dr Barlow added: “Our ageing urban infrastructure needs to adapt to withstand the impact of our changing climate, rather than worsening the climate by increasing energy use and carbon emissions. The interaction between climate and buildings is not generally recognised by engineers and planners who are working to transform urban infrastructure, partly because the science on which design standards are based does not incorporate understanding of urban climate. Adaptation of existing and new buildings to sustainably withstand warmer futures needs both legislation and standards – and we will be working to provide the evidence that policy requires.”

The radar system, utilising similar technology to that used in land mine detection, has been developed by a team at the University of Bristol with EPSRC support. It has been commercialised by spin-out company Micrima Ltd and is being trialled by the North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT). The Bristol team has been working for a number of years to develop a breast-imaging device which uses radio waves and therefore has no radiation risk unlike conventional mammograms. Dr Ian Craddock from the university’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, said: “This new imaging technique works by transmitting radio waves of a very low energy and detecting reflected signals, it then uses these signals to make a 3D image of the breast. This is basically the same as any radar system, such as the radars used for air traffic control at our airports.”

A £1m project funded by EPSRC will help city buildings adapt to global warming.

Our ageing urban infrastructure needs to adapt to withstand the impact of our changing climate

A NEW breast imaging system could make cancer screening quicker, safer and more successful.

Mike Shere, associate specialist breast clinician at NBT, said: “It takes less time to operate than a mammogram, approximately six minutes for both breasts compared with 30-45 minutes for an MRI and like an MRI it provides a very detailed 3D digital image. “Women love it as they compare it to a mammogram and find the whole experience much more comfortable.” The radar breast imaging system is built using transmitters and receivers arranged around a ceramic cup, which the breast sits in. These transmitters view the breast from several different angles. Professor Alan Preece from the university’s Medical Physics Department, added: “Using this engineering knowledge we built the machine using ground penetrating radar, a similar technique to land mine detection, to take four hundred quarter of a second pictures of the breast to form a 3D image. “Women do not feel any sensation and it equates to the same type of radiation exposure as speaking into a mobile phone at arms length which makes it much safer.”

EPSRC fighting crime briefings

Technology is a major tool in helping police detect, track and convict criminals and in improving public safety and security.

EPSRC-funded research is leading the development of new techniques, systems and software across all areas of crime prevention and detection. Fields range from facial recognition and forensics to security screening and behavioural analysis. This leading research is helping police and security services stay one step ahead.

Bullet tagging

Tiny ‘nanotags’ made from pollen could allow investigators to trace people who have handled bullets used in a crime. Invisible to the naked eye, the tags could be coated onto gun cartridges and would attach themselves to the hands or gloves of anyone who handled them. Some of the ‘nanotag’ would remain on the cartridge after firing, making it possible to establish a robust forensic link between cartridges fired during a crime and whoever handled them. The technology is being developed by an EPSRC-funded team from Brighton, Brunel, Cranfield, Surrey and York Universities. Project partners are the Forensic Science Service, BAE Systems and coatings manufacturer Andura.

Geographic profiling Geographic profiling of the way bees search for food could help police track serial killers. Researchers at Queen Mary, University of London, discovered that bees will only forage at a certain distance from their hives to reduce the risk of parasites and predators locating their nest. This is similar to the behaviour of serial killers, who will often strike close to their own homes, but not in the area directly surrounding their house. The information can be applied back to human behaviour patterns in crime situations by substituting the information on flower distribution for details about crime scenes, locations of robberies or abandoned cars. The research was joint funded by EPSRC, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council and the Wellcome Trust.

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

Illuminating the evidence New research aims to make TV fiction a reality by producing a solution which, when sprayed on items of forensic evidence such as clothing, will cause any traces of blood, semen or saliva to ‘light up’. Forensic scientists will be able to quickly identify where the body fluids are located and can remove them for DNA profiling. The ‘Light It Up’ project, at the University of East Anglia and King’s College London, is based on nanoparticle technology. Each nanoparticle recognises and binds to target fluids. When a specialist forensic light source is shone on the item, the areas where body fluids are located will show up as different colours. For example, semen will show up as blue, saliva as green and blood as red. Knowing which body fluid is present can provide vital corroborative evidence for police investigations and help support suspect, victim or witness statements.

Putting a face to the crime New facial composite technology is helping police in criminal investigations and prosecution. Lancashire Constabulary was the first UK police force to successfully trial the EvoFIT system. EvoFIT is based on the ‘whole face perception principle’ and witnesses select from a set of complete faces, rather than individual facial features, to produce a superior result. Peter Hancock, who led the development at the University of Stirling, says: “The system is based on research into how the human mind processes information. EvoFIT breeds the selected faces together, combining characteristics and a composite is ‘evolved’ over time. EvoFIT is the direct result of research through the government’s DTI/EPSRC/LINK research programme and was commercialised by technology provider ABM.

Soil fingerprinting The SoilFit project integrates state-of-the-art soil fingerprinting with national databases and appropriate statistics to link soil forensic samples to likely geographical origin. The Macaulay Institute in Aberdeen, is leading the project designed to unearth soil secrets that will reveal vital clues to aid crime investigation. The techniques will assist police officers in more rapidly and accurately locating missing persons, murder victims or objects connected with crime. “We are coupling independent and improved chemical and biological identification methods with UK forensic database information to help pull clues from the soil,” says lead researcher Dr Lorna Dawson. “This project brings together conventional, improved and new soil analytical techniques for forensic use on UK soils and aims to develop new intelligence and evidential tools for the benefit of the police and the judicial system.”

briefings

Mobile phones to provide medical help A SYSTEM using mobile phones will help people with chronic conditions such as diabetes and asthma monitor their own health and prevent hospital admissions.

It was developed by Oxford University engineers in collaboration with clinical colleagues and was based on research supported by EPSRC. The system, designed by t+ Medical, uses software that can be downloaded to a standard mobile phone handset and has already been adopted by eight primary care trusts across the UK. The software enables patients to easily send data – such as blood pressure, blood sugar levels or medication side effects – to a remote server that gives immediate feedback on their state of health. Professor Lionel Tarassenko of Oxford’s Department of Engineering Science, who led the team that developed the system, said: “In the UK there are over 17m people with a chronic disease or long-term condition. Around 80 per cent of GP consultations relate to long-term conditions and patients with such conditions use over 60 per cent of hospital days. By keeping patients out of hospital telehealth systems like t+ Medical’s can improve patients’ quality of life and save the NHS millions.” In the UK 12m people – a fifth of the population – suffer from diabetes, hypertension, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary

Centre to combat natural disaster

A £1.2m centre dedicated to helping the government understand natural and environmental hazards has started work.

The collaborative Centre of Excellence in Understanding and Managing Natural and Environmental Risk is based at Cranfield University and will provide world-leading evidence and expertise on environmental risks such as flooding, animal and plant disease and adapting to climate change. The centre is jointly funded by EPSRC, the Economic and Social Research Council, the Natural Environment Research Council and Defra. It will work closely with Defra to assess the probabilities and impacts of these

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

disease. With Type 2 diabetes being the fastest growing disease in the western world as a result of poor diet and obesity, the World Health Organisation has recently predicted that long-term conditions will be the leading cause of disability by 2020. “Improving how patients can manage their own health, alongside giving them regular education and support, is seen as the best way of slowing the inexorable rise of healthcare spending on long-term conditions,” said Professor Tarassenko. “Our system offers one way of delivering both self-monitoring and support from health professionals.” A version of the system is available to help patients monitor the side effects of cancer chemotherapy as well as systems for diabetes, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

risks and feed this improved information into Defra’s policy development. Professor Robert Watson, chief scientific adviser for Defra, said: “Scientific information plays a vital role in finding solutions to the challenges of climate change, natural disasters and animal diseases. This new centre will be at the forefront of finding ways to assess the risks of issues like flooding and animal and plant diseases and will improve Defra’s ability to compare different types of risk and their impacts.”

EPSRC cash for breakthrough areas

A NEW £20m investment – as part of EPSRC’s Science and Innovation Awards – will support emerging areas of science. Lesley Thompson, EPSRC director of research, said: “These awards are part of our

continuing work to ensure Britain has the necessary leadership and resources in breakthrough areas of scientific research. These new centres will have the critical mass to make major research progress, stimulate research in the UK and international community and, where appropriate, to encourage innovation in UK business and industry.” The University of Manchester in partnership with Lancaster University have received a £5m grant to research applications of graphene – a new form of ‘super carbon’, discovered in the UK in 2004 – in areas of material science, chemistry and engineering. The University of Exeter and the University of Bath have jointly received grants totalling around £5m to look at the applications of graphene in the areas of nano-electronics, photonics and bio-sciences. The other two EPSRC Science and Innovation Awards for 2008 have been shared between Imperial College London and the London School of Economics for research into synthetic biology and a consortium of Scottish universities – University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and University of Strathclyde – looking at high performance computing, including complex software algorithms and numerical analysis

interview 11

John Hand Head of digital economy

Opening the digital doors to a world of possibilities The Research Councils’ £103m digital economy programme, led by EPSRC, aims to transform the way technology improves everyday life. he ethos is a clear and simple one – to put the users and potential impacts at the heart of digital technology development. “It is taking technologies and using them to their full potential,” says John Hand, head of digital economy (DE). “We want to ensure that’s driven by needs and a real understanding of the impacts these technologies can have. “It is about new ways to capture, store and share information and focussing on the impacts that can have. And it’s about feeding those potential impacts back into the research.” Digital technology has revolutionised all areas of life – from the way we communicate and socialise to the way we shop, travel and access healthcare. It has spawned thousands of new products, such as mobile phones and sat-nav systems and transformed traditional industries such as music and entertainment. But despite rapid advances, Mr Hand says many ‘digital revolutions’ have happened by chance and novel applications can be overlooked. He says the driving ambition of the DE programme is to ensure every possibility is exploited. “The music industry was transformed by developments in digital technologies but the industry didn’t understand the impacts before they happened,” says Mr Hand. “Things like

It is taking technologies and using them to their full potential. John Hand

piracy and file-sharing, artists such as The Arctic Monkeys rising to fame through MySpace. “But the creative industries account for a huge share of GDP in the UK and to maintain that we need to be understanding and adopting these technologies faster than the rest of the world,” he adds. And it is not just entertainment that is benefiting from the novel use of technologies. Financial services, healthcare and transport are just a few of the areas that have reaped rewards. “Diabetics have to take insulin readings, keep a log and then report these back to the doctor at

the next appointment. But using new technology, this information can be input into their mobile phone and instantly sent to a GP allowing continual monitoring,” he says. It is the creation of these novel applications that the programme aims to foster by bringing together expertise in wide-ranging areas and putting end users in direct contact with those developing the technology. A number of doctoral training centres have now been funded to train a new generation of researchers and three DE research hubs will bring together different disciplines to develop novel applications. Another DE initiative – ‘Research in the Wild’ – aims to get new technologies out on the street at an early stage and allow researchers to see how devices are used and abused. “We want to get stuff out there, see how it’s used in new or unusual ways and then feed that back into the long term research agenda,” says Mr Hand. And, says Mr Hand, if it is truly successful the digital economy may not become science’s newest discipline – it will be an embedded attitude across the entire research spectrum. For more information and opportunities within EPSRC’s digital economy programme contact John Hand, john.hand@epsrc.ac.uk or visit www.epsrc.ac.uk

Renewable energyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new breed The EPSRC-funded training centre that will turn wind powerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s potential into reality Words: Chris Buratta

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

new power 13 ritain’s target of 20 per cent of electricity generation from renewable sources by 2020 is, quite literally, blowing in the wind. Fledgling technologies exploiting tidal, wave and solar power all have great potential but in the short-term it is wind power that will have to provide a significant share if green aspirations are to become a reality. And a new generation of wind energy specialists will be needed if we are to have any hope of making this happen. Professor Bill Leithead is the director of the new Wind Energy Systems doctoral training centre funded by EPSRC. Based at Strathclyde University, the centre will train PhD students specialising in all aspects of wind power technology – from aerodynamicists and mechanical engineers to electrical engineers and power conversion specialists. As part of a new breed of centres for doctoral training, it will go one step further – it will combine these skills with an awareness of the wider social and economic issues facing wind energy and create a community of researchers capable of realising the UK’s renewable goal.

We must take on board people’s fears and changing attitudes and respond as a wind energy community. Professor Bill Leithead

Wind Energy Systems director Professor Bill Leithead

“Every time someone proposes a wind farm there are objections from different groups,” says Professor Leithead. “So we need to bring the public with us on this and we need to engage with people and educate them. “We must take on board people’s fears and changing attitudes and respond as a wind energy community. That is very important. We can improve technology greatly but unless it is accepted and deployed on a large scale little will be achieved.” He adds: “The socio-economic aspects will

benefit from linking into projects such as ‘Sustainable Glasgow’, analysing commercially and technically feasible options for making Glasgow Europe’s most sustainable city within ten years, and ‘Attitudes to Energy’, exploring public and organisational attitudes to energy, their inherent contradictions, and how such attitudes might be changed to support development of a more secure and low carbon energy future”. The new centre will bring all of this work together, drawing on the university’s strong tradition of research in wind power technologies and pulling on resources at the Fraser of Allander Institute (economics) and Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship to provide research leaders the wind power industry requires. Professor Leithead has no doubt about the role wind energy will play in meeting short-term renewables targets or the pressing need for the researchers the centre will train. “It’s absolutely critical. There will be a need for a large part of future power generation to come from wind,” he says. “But wind energy is suffering from a shortage of people across the board, from technicians through to graduate level and beyond. This is not just a UK shortage, it’s EU and worldwide and could hamper the progress of the industry,” adds Professor Leithead. One of the major factors of this shortage is the increasing demand for wind power by countries seeking greener power generation.

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The centre will be housed in custom built research facilities

new power 15

Wind power is growing exponentially and demand for wind turbines is outstripping supply.

Science and Innovation Minister Lord Drayson announces EPSRC’s £250m investment in centres for doctoral training

Professor Bill Leithead

EPSRC’s big investment “Wind power is growing exponentially and demand for wind turbines is outstripping supply. The order books are full for many years ahead. The market has exploded,” says Professor Leithead. The centre itself, due to open its doors in the autumn, will be housed in custom built research facilities giving students access to state-of-the-art equipment. It will take students from a wide range of backgrounds including physical sciences, engineering, architecture, economics and social sciences, to work on the broad range of research issues facing the industry. “This large-scale activity gives us critical mass and allows us to provide the breadth of training needed. Wind energy is a broad discipline,” says Professor Leithead. The ambition at Strathclyde, supported by EPSRC, is to create a national resource centre for wind energy systems and ensure our critical energy targets are met. For more information about the Wind Energy Systems centre for doctoral training visit: www.instee.strath.ac.uk/content For more information about EPSRC’s centres for doctoral training and wider training portfolio visit: www.epsrc.ac.uk

Thanks to Scottish Power Renewables for access to the Black Law Wind Farm, South Lanarkshire.

EPSRC has funded 44 new centres for doctoral training to tackle some of the biggest problems currently facing Britain such as climate change, energy, our ageing population and high-tech crime. It is the biggest ever single investment in training scientists and engineers and will generate over 2,000 PhD students. Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Lord Drayson, announced the £250m initiative. He said: “Britain faces many challenges in the 21st Century and needs scientists and engineers with the right skills to find answers to these challenges, build a strong economy and keep us globally competitive. EPSRC’s doctoral training centres will provide a new wave of engineers and scientists to do the job.” The centres are a bold new approach to training PhD students, creating communities of researchers working on current and future challenges. Seventeen of the new centres will be industrial training centres that will equip their students with the business skills they need to turn pioneering ideas into products and services, boosting their impact on the UK’s economy. EPSRC chief executive, Professor Dave Delpy, added: “EPSRC centres for doctoral training expand our existing training portfolio, focus on priority themes for the UK, emerging and multidisciplinary research, and greater collaboration with business.”

Read the signal

New data analysis technology, developed with EPSRC funding, is improving aircraft reliability, helping York’s buses run on time and even assisting better management of chronic health conditions. Words: Judy Redfearn

n 2002, Rolls-Royce was searching for new ways to improve maintenance and reliability of its engines – a huge factor in securing billion dollar contracts to supply the world’s biggest aeroplane manufacturers. The solution was new software and hardware technologies capable of analysing aircraft engine performance data quickly and accurately and making it available simultaneously at locations around the world. It sounds simple – but a fleet of aircraft in continual operation generates terabytes of data, equivalent to several thousand CDs worth in a year. Rolls-Royce needed a way of pooling this vast distributed data resource so that comparisons between signals could be made rapidly. Rolls-Royce responds to automatically generated signals that could indicate the need for engine maintenance. This involves highly skilled engineers visually inspecting the engine vibration data which is downloaded to a database when the plane lands at a suitable airport. However, getting a clear idea of the nature of the problem often requires comparison with data from similar aircraft, which may have been downloaded to databases held at different airports. The Distributed Aircraft Maintenance Environment (DAME) e-science project, funded by EPSRC, tackled both of these issues. And it has already logged a positive impact. Rolls-Royce is now using DAME technology in its new Intelligent Engine Health Monitoring systems to reduce maintenance disruption and

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increase the amount of time an aircraft spends in flight. “Towards the end of the project, we presented the results to Boeing who were then deciding on their engine providers for the 787 Dreamliner. They were impressed with the technology and that was one of the factors cited for choosing Rolls-Royce,” says Graham Hesketh, project manager for DAME at Rolls-Royce. DAME built a computing grid that effectively transformed the widely dispersed databases into a distributed data repository that could be accessed by a maintenance engineer anywhere.

data analysis 17

We presented the results to Boeing who were deciding on their engine providers for the 787 Dreamliner. They were impressed with the technology and that was one of the factors cited for choosing Rolls-Royce. Graham Hesketh

The swept 20-blade fan of the Rolls Royce Trent 1000

Researchers also developed pattern matching software, called Signal Data Explorer (SDE). “SDE searches a dataset of signal data for an ‘event’, an unusual pattern in the data, and then compares it with other ‘events’ held across the whole repository of datasets”, says York University’s Professor Jim Austin, who led the project. This enables new patterns to be linked to appropriate maintenance requirements. Many transport operators already record data generated by sensors on their vehicles, but they lack the resources and know-how to interpret them accurately and efficiently. Now Cybula, a company spun-out from DAME research, is commercialising tools that could help. “Industry often collects data then doesn’t know what to do with it. You have to think of the analysis first,” says Professor Austin. For more information about EPSRCfunded research in this area contact: Sarah Fulford, sarah.fulford@epsrc.ac.uk For more information about Cybula visit: www.cybula.com

Other industries picking up DAME’s signal Following the success at Rolls-Royce, train and bus operators, traffic managers, oil and gas pipeline operators and healthcare professionals are now knocking on Cybula’s door. • The residents of York may soon be surprised to notice the city’s buses keeping better time. DAME SDE software is being used to analyse traffic flow data including CCTV footage. The plan is to make traffic lights more responsive to actual traffic flows and volumes. • Dame SDE software can also detect leaks in pipelines. A leak sets up pressure waves in the liquid which can be detected by pressure and flow meters on the pipe. By analysing data from these meters, SDE can detect leaks and pinpoint where they are. • SDE is being used to identify and search for signals in brain cell activity that could be related to different diseases. • In Leeds SDE is helping patients and doctors manage chronic kidney disease by searching through data on kidney function for patterns that could be correlated with changes in treatment.

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

Harnessing the power of the sea

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A new device, developed with EPSRC funding, is set to make wave power cheaper and greener than ever before. Words: Maria Burke

cean power is one of the most predictable and abundant sources of renewable energy in the world and Scotland’s seas, in particular, are a fantastic potential source of sustainable energy. At the vanguard of developing wave and tidal power in Scotland is Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Power. The company is commercialising a wave power device that originated from EPSRC-funded research in the laboratories of Queen’s University Belfast. Called Oyster, this innovative design to capture the power of the waves is ready for full-scale testing and is scheduled to supply power to the National Grid by 2013. In contrast to many other wave-power devices, Oyster uses hydropower technology to transfer wave power to shore – where it is then converted into electricity. This has simplified the system, cut costs and reduced environmental risks, says Sian McGrath, Aquamarine’s head of commercial development. There are fewer moving parts immersed in sea water,

no need for underwater electrical or electronic components, and no gearbox, generator or power electronics. “This means it is easy to maintain and reliable,” she adds. “The most complex part of the system is onshore, so it is accessible 365 days a year and the hydroelectric plant on-shore is standard proven technology. All of these factors make it cost competitive.” Oyster’s story began in 2003 with Professor Trevor Whittaker’s team at Queen’s University Belfast, funded by EPRSC, investigating reducing the costs of wave power. The project focused on experimental and numerical studies of Oscillating Wave Surge Converters (OWSC) and ultimately led to the development of Oyster. The innovative designs attracted the interest of Alan Thomson, the retired founder of WaveGen, the UK’s oldest wave power company, who went on to co-fund feasibility studies with EPSRC. In 2005, Aquamarine Power was set up to exploit the commercial potential of Oyster.

Oyster timeline April 2003

Professor Trevor Whittaker and Dr Matt Folley of Queen’s University Belfast, with funding from Aquamarine Power’s founder and EPSRC, develop the innovative wave energy converter, Oyster.

February 2005

Aquamarine Power was founded to take forward the commercial development of Oyster.

An array of just ten Oysters could provide enough energy to power up to 3,000 homes. That’s 7,000 people – the size of a small town. Sian McGrath

Above: The full-scale Oyster prototype has been manufactured by Isleburn at Nigg in the north of Scotland.

The Aquamarine Power team has been testing scaled down versions of Oyster for the past three years in the wave power tank at Queen’s University Belfast. Last year it completed fabrication of the first full-scale prototype and will carry out onshore testing over the winter ready for offshore trials at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney in summer 2009. If all goes well, says McGrath, Aquamarine Power’s first fully commissioned demonstration wave power farm will be up and running by 2012; with potential for commercial farms to be operating as early as 2013. The company’s portfolio now also extends to a tidal-power converter and a desalination device as well as Oyster. Aquamarine Power acquired rights to an underwater tidal turbine demonstrator called Neptune when it joined forces with Scottish and Southern Energy’s subsidiary, Renewable Technology Ventures Ltd, in 2007.

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By exploiting the best research and technology from both the private and public sectors, the company looks set to become the first company in the world to deploy both wave and tidal devices on a commercial scale, says McGrath. “There is a real opportunity for Scotland to lead the growth of a new worldwide industry,” she adds. “This is a very exciting and important time for the marine energy industry, which is going from strength to strength.” For more information about EPSRC’s energy programme and opportunities for involvement contact: Jason Green, jason.green@epsrc.ac.uk or Rachel Bishop, rachel.bishop@epsrc.ac.uk For more information about Oyster and Aquamarine Power visit: www.aquamarinepower.com

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October 2007

September 2008

Aquamarine Power joined forces with Renewable Technology Ventures Ltd (RTVL), a subsidiary of Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE).

Aquamarine Power was awarded the title of ‘Emerging Technology Promoter of the Year’ at the Global Renewable Energy Awards 2008.

August 2008

Aquamarine Power appointed Martin McAdam as Chief Executive Officer. McAdam was responsible for founding wind power company Airtricity’s North American operations bought by E.ON in 2007 for £0.75 bn.

Pioneers09 Connecting business with pioneering research

How it works Oyster is a hydro-electric wave power converter, designed to capture the energy found in nearshore waves. The system consists of a simple steel pump (or Oscillating Wave Surge Converter) fitted with water pistons and fixed to the sea bed in depths of around ten to 12 metres. Each passing wave activates the pump, which creates high pressure water that is sent through a pipeline to the shore. Onshore, conventional hydro-electric generators convert this high-pressure water into electrical power. Several nearshore pumps can feed a single onshore hydroelectric generator. The peak power generated by each Oyster could be between 300–600kW, depending on location and configuration. “Commercial wave farms will be deployed in arrays,” explains Sian McGrath, Aquamarine Power’s head of commercial development. “An array of just ten Oysters powering one onshore hydroelectric plant could provide enough energy to power up to 3,000 homes. That’s 7,000 people – the size of a small town.”

To find out more about the Oyster and meet the team behind it, come to Pioneers09 – 4 March 2009. For event information and to register free, visit: http://pioneers.epsrc.ac.uk

NS / OPINIONS / HOPES / MISCONCEPTIONS / IDEAS / / C ON / APPREHENSION / EXCITEMENT / SUSPICIONS / INFLUENCES / TIVE MEDICINE / DRUG DISCOVERY / PERSONALISED S ASPIRATIONS / FEARS / SAFETY / ETHICS /CONSEQUENCES / POTENTIAL M RANOSTICS / HEALTHCARE / RESEARCH / EMPOWERMENT / / ENGAGEMENT / FOCUS / GOALS / PERCEPTIONS / IMPACT / ISSUES / Y / SAFETY / ISSUES / RELIABILITY / CONCERNS / REGULATION D ES / THOUGHTS / CONCERNS / OPINIONS / HOPES / MISCONCEPTIONS / VERY / INFECTION / CONTROL / REGENERATIVE MEDICINE / DRUG I AS / COMPREHENSION / APPREHENSION / EXCITEMENT / SUSPICIONS / VERY / PERSONALISED MEDICINE / THERANOSTICS / HEALTHCARE I FLUENCES / SUPPORT / ASPIRATIONS / FEARS / SAFETY / ETHICS /CONSEQUENCES H / EMPOWERMENT / AVAILABILITY / SAFETY / ISSUES / RELIABILITY POTENTIAL / VIEWS / ENGAGEMENT / FOCUS / GOALS / PERCEPTIONS / IMPACT / ERNS / REGULATION / DIAGNOSIS / DELIVERY / INFECTION / CONTROL ISSUES / DEBATES / THOUGHTS / CONCERNS / OPINIONS / HOPES / MEDICINE / DRUG DISCOVERY / PERSONALISED MEDICINE MISCONCEPTIONS / IDEAS / COMPREHENSION RESEARCH / EMPOWERMENT / AVAILABILITY EXCITEMENT / SUSPICIONS / INFLUENCES CONCERNS / REGULATION / DIAGNOSIS / DELIVERY ASPIRATIONS / FEARS / SAFETY / ETHICS REGENERATIVE MEDICINE / DRUG DISCOVERY POTENTIAL / VIEWS / ENGAGEMENT THERANOSTICS / HEALTHCARE / RESEARCH P RCEPTIONS / IMPACT / ISSUES SAFETY / ISSUES / RELIABILITY / CONCERNS / OPES / MISCONCEPTIONS / IDEAS INFECTION / CONTROL / REGENERATIVE E CITEMENT / SUSPICIONS / INFLUENCES PERSONALISED MEDICINE / THERANOSTICS TENTIAL / VIEWS / ENGAGEMENT RESEARCH / AVAILABILITY / SAFETY / ISSUES I UES / DEBATES / THOUGHTS / HOPES DIAGNOSIS / DELIVERY / INFECTION M CONCEPTIONS / IDEAS / CONCERNS MEDICINE / THERANOSTICS / HEALTHCARE / C MPREHENSION / APPREHENSION RESEARCH / EMPOWERMENT / AVAILABILITY / E TEMENT / SUSPICIONS / INFLUENCES SAFETY / ISSUES / RELIABILITY / CONCERNS S PORT / ASPIRATIONS / FEARS REGULATION / DIAGNOSIS / DELIVERY / INFECTION S TY / ETHICS /CONSEQUENCES CONTROL / REGENERATIVE MEDICINE / DRUG P NTIAL / VIEWS / ENGAGEMENT DISCOVERY / PERSONALISED MEDICINE F S / GOALS / PERCEPTIONS RESEARCH / EMPOWERMENT / AVAILABILITY I CT / ISSUES / DEBATES / THOUGHTS C ERNS / OPINIONS / HOPES / MISCONCEPTIONS / IDEAS / COMPREHENSION / EXCITEMENT / DISCOVERY / DELIVERY / PERSONALISED MEDICINE / THERANOSTICS / H

Talking nano

Why did EPSRC ask the public to help shape the complex area of nanotechnology research? Words: Chris Buratta ground breaking public dialogue on nanotechnology for healthcare has had a real influence on the direction of UK research – and how £15m of funding will be allocated. Detailed workshops have shown considerable support for applications and have given a clear indication of people’s aspirations and fears and what types of technology they want to see progressed. These, along with a wide-range of other inputs from scientists and clinicians, helped shape the direction of research funding in this area.

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

But what can the layman bring to a specialist area of science? “It’s easy to think the public don’t know anything about science and they can’t contribute. That’s a very old fashioned view,” says Professor Richard Jones, EPSRC’s senior strategic advisor on nanotechnology. “They might not know much about science but they know lots about other issues and have very practical ways of thinking. They bring a great diversity of points of view. Public dialogue is very useful to scientists in helping them see the wider picture.” Nanotechnology has the potential to transform all areas of life – including healthcare – but brings with it concerns about safety and ethics. These concerns have prompted the need to involve the wider public in the debate on future research. “There was a feeling nanotechnology was new and had the potential to bring many benefits, but that it might also have consequences people might be concerned about,” says Professor Jones, who also sits on EPSRC’s Societal Issues Panel, where the idea of the dialogue was first discussed. “There was a feeling there should be public engagement at an early stage, a real two way dialogue before it was too late and before a course was fixed.” But the main stumbling block with any public consultation is connecting the information with actual research. It can be difficult to relate the views and aspirations of ordinary people to funding strategies or individual projects.

nanotechnology 23

Public dialogue is very useful to scientists in helping them see the wider picture. Professor Richard Jones

Nano for healthcare What the public think

EPSRC’s in-depth public dialogue on nanotechnology used workshops led by expert researchers to guide members of the public through debates on six possible areas of healthcare research and detail their aspirations and concerns for each. The study concluded that people greatly valued healthcare applications and placed importance on empowerment and need for advances to be available to all. The issues of safety and reliability were concerns and it was felt that regulation needed to be rigorous but fair. At the end of the process the areas were ranked in order of preference.

“This dialogue answers that question,” adds Professor Jones. “It directly links Nanotechnology public engagement with a real decision. is the control of It was possible for us to be much more matter at a molecular concrete. Tying it to the healthcare level and the grand challenge allowed us to focus engineering of the discussion and to say ‘this is what functional devices some scientists are proposing to do at that scale. what do you think?’. Most people can relate to it as healthcare touches everyone.” He adds: “In research like this we are trying to meet societal goals, but to do this we need a good idea of what the public sees as the most important of those goals. So we need to ask them.” He admits this can be more easily said than done. “But this is absolutely not about saying ‘let’s do science by opinion poll’. It’s not about the scientific details, it’s about choosing the directions to steer some parts of applied science. There are lots of areas where you wouldn’t apply this approach.” One of the main aspirations highlighted by the dialogue was that of empowerment. People warmed to technologies that let them take control of their own lives but had more concerns about devices that reduced human interaction. There was a positive reaction to technologies that gave people greater control of their health by allowing early diagnosis of disease and for drug delivery devices that promised to reduce side-effects. But areas such as theranostics – in vivo devices that both diagnose and administer treatment – led to misgivings because they were perceived as potentially removing power from the individual. Professor Jones says time and cost mean studies of this kind can only be carried out in specific areas where there is a real need and they could have a real impact. But he adds they do serve as a reminder to researchers and funding bodies of the bigger picture. “It reminds us that science is embedded in society and there are wider issues that impact on it.” EPSRC chief executive Professor David Delpy says the approach could be applied to other areas as required. “New technologies and scientific developments undoubtedly offer many potential societal benefits. However, they also have the potential to attract considerable societal concern and suspicion if not approached or applied in the right way,” he says.

1. Diagnosing illness Technologies and devices, such as ‘lab-on-a-chip’ that allow early-stage diagnosis at home or ‘health MOTs’. 2.Drug delivery Nanotechnology could help deliver higher concentrations of toxic drugs to the target area to minimise side-effects or deliver medication to hard to reach organs. 3. Infection control A number of nanoparticles have shown to have anti-bacterial and anti-viral properties and could be used in devices such as self-cleaning surfaces. 4. Regenerative medicine New nano-structures and materials could help the body replace diseased or damaged tissues. 5. Drug discovery By focussing on how drugs work at the molecular level, nanotechnology has the potential to speed up drug discovery and could even lead to personalised medicine. 6. Theranostics Devices that combine both diagnosis and drug delivery. These devices could be implanted in the body and react to environmental change – such as releasing insulin in response to blood-glucose levels in diabetics. This information was considered along with a broad range of other inputs and views and, in 2008, EPSRC’s Nanotechnology Grand Challenge for healthcare focussed on the areas of diagnosing illness and drug delivery.

“It is therefore important that the public’s views and aspirations are listened to and factored into our decision making. We in EPSRC are very grateful to Richard Jones for leading on this and the challenge for us now is how we might build on this good work and expand this approach to other areas of our research portfolio where appropriate”. For more information about EPSRC’s nanoscience through engineering to application programme contact: Chris Jones, chris.jones@epsrc.ac.uk To read the report in full visit: www.epsrc.ac.uk/NanoHealth

Good vibrations

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

vibration harvesting 25

Sensor networks provide vital, often safety-critical data in everything from passenger aircraft to large industrial machinery. Failure is not an option – that’s why a sensor that harnesses the perpetual power of vibration is set to create a shock wave. Words: Tony Newton

n many industrial systems, vibration is an unwanted by-product of useful work, wasting energy in a potentially destructive manner. But while much research is directed at minimising vibration, Southampton based Perpetuum Ltd has turned the game on its head and is putting wasted energy to work. The idea will be familiar to anyone who owns a ‘kinetic’ wristwatch, in which there’s no winder and no battery. The watch mechanism is powered by an electric current generated by the wearer’s hand and arm movements. But what if the energy ‘harvested’ by that movement powered a wireless sensor instead of a watch? There are any number of applications in which sensors have to operate in dirty, dangerous or inaccessible locations where a battery operated or wired sensor is impractical: changing the battery means having to physically access the sensor and a wired connection means breaching the integrity of the area being monitored. So a sensor which can reliably generate enough energy from local vibration to power a wireless data connection and send data across that connection should find a ready market. That’s just what Perpetuum, a company spun out of the University of Southampton, has developed. Its sensors, powered by the vibration of the machinery or system they are monitoring, are already proving their worth at Yorkshire Water. Perpetuum CEO Roy Freeland sees a wide range of applications that could benefit from vibration harvesting. “This is a highly attractive option for wireless condition monitoring because all mains-driven machinery vibrates. Indeed, the level of its vibration is frequently used as an indicator of its condition.” “Wherever there is a motor, whether it’s at a waste water treatment plant or a chemical plant, a microgenerator can be used to power a wireless,

This is a highly attractive option for wireless condition monitoring because all mainsdriven machinery vibrates Perpetuum CEO Roy Freeland

battery-free sensor and transmit large amounts of critical data which can be used to optimise operation, improve cost-efficiency of maintenance, prevent accidents and make significant savings in energy costs.” Work on the concept began in 1999, when EPSRC funding allowed Professor Neil White and his team in the Department of Electronics and Computer Science at University of Southampton to investigate whether piezoelectric or electromagnetic generators were best for use in vibration

We are exceptionally pleased with the results so far. Tests to date show that vibration energy harvesting is now a practical and feasible method of powering wireless condition monitoring. Yorkshire Water R&D engineer Peter Boruszenko

Left: Microgenerator installed at Yorkshire Water’s waste incineration plant

energy harvesting. At the same time, low power sensors were just emerging from research laboratories and Professor White saw the opportunity to combine sensing and generating. Having established the electromagnetic route was the way forward, the team sought Southampton University’s help both to create a prototype and to carry out a market study to see if the product was commercially viable. The results of that study were positive, and Perpetuum Ltd was spun out of the university with £300,000 of SULIS seedcorn funding. Since then, the company has raised £5m funding from private equity sources, including two of the original investors whose decision to take up their pre-emption rights demonstrates their confidence in the commercial possibilities of the technology. Perpetuum’s vibration energy-harvesting microgenerator comprises a magnetic circuit coupled to a mechanical resonator which transforms the kinetic energy of vibration into electrical current. “The technology works on Faraday’s principle that a coil moving through a magnetic field has a current induced in it,” explains Professor White. “What we’ve succeeded in doing is bringing the scale right down while increasing the power output and component lifespan to useful commercial levels.” The current generated is typically between 0.3 and 1 milliwatt per sensor, depending primarily on the amplitude and frequency of vibrational energy present in the local environment. “It’s a bit like pushing a swing,” says Professor White, “find just the right moment to tap it and you can keep the swing going with very little extra energy. “Our next challenge is to autotune our devices so that they are always running at optimal energy output.

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

The company has raised £5m from private equity sources including two of the original investors, demonstrating their confidence in the commercial possibilities of the technology.

vibration harvesting 27

Perpetuum’s PMG17 microgenerators

Potential applications for perpetuum’s sensors Industry In November 2005, six microgenerators were installed on motors and blowers in Yorkshire Water’s waste incinerator plant. This environment was chosen because it is especially harsh with lots of potential for interference with the data signal. Each piece of equipment has a unique signature vibration reading which is measured and transmitted by the microgenerator. Should any vibration reading change, operators are alerted and the equipment serviced before failure or the need for unplanned and potentially expensive downtime. “We are exceptionally pleased with the results so far,” says Peter Boruszenko, R&D engineer at Yorkshire Water. “The microgenerators have generated enough electricity and data from day one. Tests to date show that vibration energy harvesting is now a practical and feasible method of powering wireless condition monitoring”. Transportation Continuous monitoring of wheel bearings provides valuable information on the performance of a passenger train, rail wagon or earth moving equipment. Wireless monitoring using microgenerators allows continuous monitoring with no batteries to replace is economical to retrofit as no wiring needs to be installed or maintained.

“The amount of energy we need depends on the application,” explains Professor White. “For temperature sensing, things tend to change quite slowly, so transmitting data as little as a few times per second to once an hour could be sufficient. But measuring the vibration profile of wear in a bearing, we need to sample that vibration thousands of times a second and transmit the data every few seconds in order to pre-empt failure of that bearing. “Short range wireless devices typically need some tens of milliwatts to transmit and receive, but we’re only harvesting up to around one milliwatt, so clearly we need some form of energy storage, and for that, the device of choice is a supercapacitor.” But why not just link a rechargeable battery into the system and recharge that using the harvested vibrational energy? “Anyone who owns a mobile phone knows that rechargeable batteries don’t last forever, and they also don’t like being charged irregularly. It’s also a fact that commercial operations with large numbers of sensor nodes just don’t want batteries. “Clearly, we need to make the best possible use of available energy, so in future we’ll be looking at the use of ‘intelligent electronics’ that can decide for themselves when to transmit data and when to charge the supercapacitor.” For more information about EPSRC’s electronics sector and opportunities for involvement contact: Matthew Ball, matthew.ball@epsrc.ac.uk For more information about Perpetuum visit: www.perpetuum.co.uk

The same technology can monitor the condition of fragile or perishable goods transported in a controlled environment. Temperature or humidity sensors or even accelerometers can be linked to microgenerators and retrofitted into existing containers or wagons without the expense of rewiring. Medical If movement of the hand and arm can provide enough power in the microwatt range to drive a kinetic watch, so the milliwatt output of Perpetuum’s microgenerators offers some intriguing possibilities. “The classic example is the cardiac pacemaker,” says Professor White. “If you can use a microgenerator implanted under the skin to harvest the movement of the human body to keep the pacemaker battery topped up, you can potentially extend the lifetime of the battery by a few years and avoid unnecessary surgical intervention to replace batteries.” Aerospace In both civil and military aircraft, health and usage monitoring systems (HUMS) technology provides significant safety, maintenance and cost saving through accurate recording of actual usage and condition. But conventional HUMS systems require sensors to be hardwired, making them expensive to install and maintain, and difficult to retrofit. Perpetuum’s wireless sensing microgenerators extend the benefits of HUMS downwards into smaller aircraft, as well as offering a cost-effective option for adding extra sensors to an existing HUMS system for failure prediction through monitoring of vibration spectra and acoustic emissions.

viewpoint

Building an inclusive digital society Professor Alan Newell, MBE, FRSE from the University of Dundee’s Queen Mother Research Centre discusses inclusion in the digital world.

he digital economy is growing and an increasing proportion of services are being delivered digitally. If we are to conquer the digital divide then everyone involved – researchers, government, social services, commerce and leisure providers – must focus on designing and installing IT systems which can be used by older and disabled people, as well as by other digitally disenfranchised groups, such as those who are illiterate, or who have only poor or non-existent English. The potential for exclusion of large numbers of people has been exacerbated by the demographic trends of an increasingly ageing population. There are now more people over 60 years of age than under 16 in the UK and 1.1 million over 80. It is predicted that by 2030 there will be 2.3 million people over 80 in the UK. There is, of course, some overlap between older people and people with disabilities and 42 per cent of 64-74 year olds have one or more disabilities limiting their quality of life. Over the past 20 years a relatively small group of researchers have been encouraging academics and industry to take these issues into account. In a keynote speech to the InterCHI (Computer Human Interface) conference in 1993, I encouraged researchers to address this important area and subsequently ‘Universal Access’, also called ‘Design for All’, has raised awareness of the importance of considering the needs of all users. A great deal has been achieved but, until recently, this has not been a popular main-stream issue either for researchers or industry. The Digital Economy is now one of EPSRC’s priority research themes and, as part of working towards digital inclusion, it has funded a network of researchers which I, along with Vicki Hanson (currently the accessibility manager at IBM New York and soon to become a full professor at the University of Dundee), and Petros Iosifidis of City University London jointly run. The objective is to promote a situation where older and disabled

PIONEER 02 Winter 2009

The challenges, particularly of getting older people to interact with digital technologies, are very large, but not insurmountable. Professor Alan Newell

people, and other digitally disenfranchised groups, benefit fully from the advantages of digital technologies and to lay down the groundwork for long term research in this field. It should be noted that the challenges IT presents will not go away as technologically-aware middle aged people move into retirement. Not only will their abilities change as they grow older but technology will continue to evolve, leaving future generations of older people as technologically challenged as the current older workers.

viewpoint 29

An additional advantage of including disabled and older people as part of the potential user group for products and services is that these groups are generally more sensitive to challenges in using new technologies. This can lead to novel ideas for improvement which can benefit everyone. There are many historical examples of this – the most successful of these being the cassette tape recorder, which was first designed specifically for blind people and initially was not thought to have any future as a universal product because of the relatively poor sound quality. The predictive typing systems, now found in mobile telephones, were developed by some of my own colleagues at Dundee, and others, initially as an alphanumeric input system for physically disabled people. We are looking at a variety of alternative ways in which we can transmit the important messages concerning design for inclusion. One of them is the use of professional theatre – both live events and professionally produced films. This is a very powerful way of discovering older people’s requirements and raising awareness amongst designers. One such example, developed with support from EPSRC, is ‘Relative Confusion’ which tells the story of an older woman trying to come to terms with digital television. The film highlights the challenges which older people face with new technology in an amusing but hard-hitting way, and has been shown to change attitudes of people who have seen it. Unless steps are taken to ensure the digital economy is truly inclusive, the current digital divide will become increasingly wide and possibly

permanent. This will be socially divisive and economically disastrous. EPSRC’s inclusive design initiatives are working towards the provision of digital technologies that are fully inclusive. This will ensure that the digital economy achieves its full potential and improves everyone’s quality of life.

Pioneers09 Connecting business with pioneering research To find out more about digital inclusion and meet Professor Newell, come to Pioneers09 – 4 March 2009. For event information and to register free, visit: http://pioneers.epsrc.ac.uk

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Gloria Laycock EPSRC Pioneer

Professor Gloria Laycock is one of the world’s leading authorities on security science and heads the EPSRC doctoral training centre in that field at University College London. The recently funded centre will create a new generation of graduates capable of tackling the evolving challenges of crime and terrorism. Professor Laycock is also director of the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science. Before taking up that post, she worked in the Home Office for over 30 years and established and headed the Home Office Police Research Group, editing its publications on policing and crime prevention for seven years. She has acted as a consultant in North America, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, South Africa and Europe. For the past two years Professor Laycock has been a member of EPSRC’s Societal Issues Panel. In 2008 she was awarded an OBE for services to crime policy. What attracted you to the area of security science? I started with an interest in the law (which relates to the security) and in human behaviour (which explains the science) and this took me, perhaps surprisingly, to psychology. I did my BSc and PhD at UCL where the courses emphasised the importance of experimentation and empiricism. Looking back it was really good luck. Is it still as exciting as when you started? Much more so! There was no security or crime science when I graduated. Now we have some wonderful science and technology being done in our universities but we need to apply it in socially sensitive, ethical ways; we need to capitalise on our research investments and get the knowledge out there. Sadly we are also, more than ever, facing threats to our safety and security but we need to make judgements about how to respond based on realistic assessments of risk. All these things make for a complex system full of exciting challenges. What do you consider your greatest achievement…and why? I will always be proud of the establishment of the Police Research Group in the Home Office.

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most of your 20s with the cost and time implications of all that; and what about all those young people pushed into universities who don’t finish the course and leave with huge debts. Madness… Who do you most admire? Obviously Nelson Mandela! But otherwise it is not so much an individual but rather all those who give so much of their lives to helping others, often at great risk to themselves, through some of the many aid organisations around the world. It would be wonderful if our science could make their lives, and those of the people they are struggling to support, much safer and more secure. For example, we need to apply that amazing engineering that delivered the Palm Island in Dubai to protecting the flood plains of India and Bangladesh.

I would have liked to have been a QC – I’m quite argumentative. Professor Gloria Laycock The decisions that we made about what to fund created some amazing results and I am convinced contributed to the reductions in crime that we saw throughout the 1990s. This experience was taken to UCL and the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, of which I am also immensely proud. What are the most important questions facing science? Breaking down the silos is something of a cliché but many of us are persuaded that if we can do that more reliably then there will be some exciting consequences. The challenge is how to do it within the existing very rigid structures of university organisation, research funding systems and peer review arrangements. If we can get it right it should help us to address those really big global challenges of health, economics, climate change and security. What frustrates you? Short-term and illogical thinking from politicians! Why is it a good idea to have 50 per cent of young people going to university? Needing a good education is a no brainer but how does it make sense to have it so focussed on the HE sector? A consequence is that to get to PhD level you need to be prepared to devote

Who or what has been your greatest influence? Very difficult but I guess I should say a colleague in the Prison Service, who was a great fan of B F Skinner, the behaviourist, and with whom I spent many happy hours arguing. He was one of those amazing people who was hugely generous with his ideas and support but never really had the personal ambition to drive himself. He was a true scientist and touched a lot of lives. What are your main interests outside science? I’ve been incredibly lucky in being able to travel all over the world and I still love it enormously. Closer to home my new high-tech kitchen is great fun and I am getting back into cooking in quite a big way. In another life what would you be? I sometimes wish I had gone into the private sector and kept well away from politicians and the civil service! Then again I would have liked to have been a QC – I’m quite argumentative. Although an entrepreneurial scientist might have been fun; or perhaps an actress. So many great possibilities and only one lifetime. Now there’s a challenge for the scientists!

09 Pioneers Connecting business with pioneering research

“Be inspired by passionate people and developments in different sectors.” Dr Chris Luebkeman, Director for Global Foresight and Innovation, Arup

4 March 2009 Olympia Conference Centre London From healthcare to the next generation of the internet, access some of the best university research in the world through talks, debates and a major exhibition.

Explore the latest research • Discover a future of intelligent transport, smart homes and fusion power • Meet researchers face-to-face • Find out about areas of emerging technology Find funding • Talk to us about funding opportunities • Meet other major funders of research and development • Hear about working with universities from a business perspective Build partnerships • Find the best researchers and students to work with you • Join networking sessions

Event partner:

For back issues or to subscribe to PIONEER for free, email: pioneer@epsrc.ac.uk

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