Smart wear Mid-valley businesses developing parts for new tech industry / B4
Shotgun success Company meets consumer needs with pellets, shells / B2
Focus 2014
Innovation transforms our economy BY MIKE MCINALLY
It was Plato who said that necessity was the mother of invention. But what drives innovation today? And, as we increasingly depend on innovation to drive the mid-valley’s economy, how do we foster an environment that values, encourages — and expects — innovation? As part of this Focus section about innovation, we put those questions to three mid-valley notables. For Greg Hamann, the president of Linn-Benton Community College, one key is to foster environments that encourage creative thinkers to dream big — and to encourage failure. “Nothing great has ever happened without failing first,” Hamann said. For Rick Spinrad, vice president for research at Oregon State University, the “Nothing keys are building great has higher tolerances for risk — and enever happened couraging what he without called “hybrid failing first.” vigor,” the sort of cross-pollination GREG HAMANN between academic LBCC PRESIDENT departments or institutions that can lead to a whole new set of innovations. For Linn County Commissioner Roger Nyquist — also a businessman — old-fashioned necessity hasn’t lost any of its ability to foster innovation. “Pressure between the checking account and the mortgage payment is always a good motivation for innovation,” he said. Nyquist noted that the mid-valley is fertile ground for innovation, with institutions such as the College of Osteopathic Medicine- Northwest, Oregon State University and Linn-Benton Community College. But Nyquist sees another source of innovation: Don’t forget, he said, about “small-business owners looking to build a better mousetrap.“ “The $64,000 question,” he said,“is how do we grow careers? How do we use innovation to grow our work force?“ FOCUS continued on B2
Hewlett-Packard revolutionized printing BY BENNETT HALL
When Hewlett-Packard’s Corvallis campus set up shop in 1976, its purpose was to design and manufacture calculators, an important product line for the company. But then as now, the local HP site had plenty of other irons in the fire, potential new products in the research and development stage. And within a few years, a small team of HP engineers in Corvallis would develop a breakthrough technology that would change the course of the company forever: inkjet printing. The idea of using a stream of ink drops as a printing mechanism dates to the 19th century, but early efforts to harness the concept were plagued with problems. Hewlett-Packard’s foray into inkjet printing in the late 1970s started out as an exploratory effort to see if a research advance at HP Labs, the company’s Silicon Valley idea factory, could be commercialized. In 1979 Frank Cloutier, a research manager at the Corvallis site, saw a demonstration of the new technique, which used heat to force drops of ink through a hole.The results were crude, but Cloutier could see the possibilities. After returning to the mid-valley and thinking about the design challenge for a few months, he started putting together a team to create a
A NEW IDEA Read more about Frank Cloutier’s new enterprise, Inspired Light, on page B5.
chased at hardware stores or scavenged from other HP projects. One early printhead was built with the plastic barrel of a Sheaffer fountain pen. Initially, the new printer was intended to work with a calculator, but the idea was adapted to function with a personal computer as HP prepared to enter that emerging market. The result, known as the ThinkJet, debuted in March 1984. The $495 machine featured a 12-nozzle printhead that could produce 80 characters per second at a resolution of 96 dots per inch, crude by today’s standards but a big improvement over most dot-matrix devices — and a whole lot quieter. Andy Cripe/Corvallis Gazette-Times “It was designed to fit into half a Frank Cloutier headed up a team of engineers that developed the first briefcase,” said Nielsen, who recently commercially viable inkjet printer 30 years ago at Hewlett-Packard’s purchased a vintage ThinkJet, still in Corvallis campus. Inexpensive, reliable printheads paired with disposable its original box, that he found at a ink cartridges — like the DeskJet model Cloutier’s juggling here — sparked garage sale. a revolution in printing technology that still reverberates today. “It was thought at the time that the busy executive on the go would have compact, quiet, reliable and affordand Dave Lowe. our printer in one half and one of able thermal inkjet printer. More than They came to be known as 100 people eventually signed onto “Cloutier’s crazies,” in part because few our battery-powered laptop computers in the other, and he could print the project, but in the beginning HP insiders believed they could sucthere were five: Cloutier, Niels ceed. But they kept at it, cobbling to- on the go.” Nielsen, Paul McClelland, Bob Low gether prototypes from parts purINKJET PRINTER continued on B2
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Inkjet printer came at the right time Focus Continued from B1
Continued from page B1
Right tech, right time The world wasn’t quite ready for laptop computers, but it was ready for desktops — a market that was primed to explode just as the next generation of HP inkjet printer, the DeskJet, was being introduced in 1988. “Quickly, people realized that a personal computer was not much use around the home or office without a printer attached to it,” Nielsen said.“What that meant was that we just happened to be sitting around with the right technology at the right time.” One key to Hewlett-Packard’s initial success in the printer market was price point. “Back then, in 1984, the letters HP stood for high price,” recalled Cloutier.“We had grown up making products for engineers.” Inkjet marked a sharp departure in that regard. Even though the printheads contained sophisticated technology to precisely control the stream of ink, the semiconductor manufacturing techniques used in HP’s Corvallis wafer fab kept costs low.The combined printhead and ink cartridge could be removed when empty and replaced with a new one for under $10. For Hewlett-Packard, the business results were phenomenal. “We went from zero percent market share to 70 percent market share in a very short time,” Cloutier said.“We had more than all of our competitors combined, and we maintained that for a very long time.”
Amanda Cowan/Gazette-Times
Niels Nielsen brought an expertise in materials science to Hewlett-Packard’s original inkjet development team, a group of five Corvallis engineers known as “Cloutier’s crazies.” The St. Helen’s printhead in his hand — taken from one of HP’s first-generation ThinkJet printers — is still widely used in a variety of specialty printers, with only minor modifications. These days Nielsen applies his creativity to art projects, such as the scooter he is riding here.
“It’s a game-changing product,” said Tim Weber, vice president and general manager of HP’s printing technology development operation and site manager of the Corvallis campus. “Twice the speed and half the cost of its competitors — it’s a category buster.”
Lasting impact
As for Cloutier’s crazies, most of them have moved on to other things — only one still works for HewlettPackard. But the development Ryan Gardner/Gazette-Times of inkjet technology remains a A worker performs a quality control inspection in the silicon landmark achievement in wafer fab at Hewlett-Packard’s Corvallis site in this file each of their careers. Cycles of innovation image from 2001. The facility, which employs the same tech“I think without question, niques used in semiconductor fabrication, still produces the for me, it’s the one that’s made That success fueled rapid electronic circuitry for the most sophisticated printheads the most impact worldwide,” growth at HP’s Corvallis cam- found in HP inkjet printers. said Cloutier, who retired from pus, which swelled to more Hewlett-Packard in 2005 and than 6,000 employees (plus billion in revenue last year. employs a new kind of printnow heads a solar power about 3,000 contract workhead called the pagewide And the Corvallis campus ers) by 1996. array, developed and manufac- startup called Inspired Light. remains heavily involved in Nielsen, who took a volunThose numbers have tured in Corvallis. Instead of the inkjet business. tary severance package in 2007 dropped to fewer than 2,000 Most of the company’s most the traditional compact printduring a round of corporate today for a variety of reasons, sophisticated printheads, for head scanning rapidly back downsizing and now works including outsourcing of high- instance, continue to be parand forth across the page, the several part-time jobs, has anvolume production to lowpagewide array packs more tially manufactured locally, other way of looking at it. wage countries and a maturthan 40,000 ink nozzles onto a and Corvallis engineers are “I had aspirations to be a ing of the inkjet business. stationary printhead that spans still engaged in developing musician when I was in grad the width of a sheet of paper. But Hewlett-Packard remains new and improved inkjet school, but I never made it as a printers, as well as other apone of the largest private emThe result, HP executives musician in grad school, ” he said. ployers in Benton County, and plications based on inkjet claim, is a highly efficient full“I always considered this thing technology. inkjet remains a key part of color office printer that can to be my platinum record.” the company’s business mix. HP’s latest and greatest crank out up to 70 pages a According to HP’s most recent inkjet models offer a case in minute at about 50 percent of Contact reporter Bennett Hall at point. annual report, printing the per-page cost of a color bennett.hall@gazettetimes.com brought in more than $23.8 laser printer. The Officejet Pro X series or 541-758-9529.
Environ Metal excels at quick turnaround BY ALEX PAUL
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B
eing able to take a product from concept to the marketplace in as few as three months has been a key to success for Environ Metal, whose foundation over the last 15 years has been developing high-quality, high-density shotgun shells under the brand name Hevi-Shot. Owned by a group of mid-valley investors, Environ Metal has been based in Sweet Home since 2000. CEO Ralph Nauman and Kelly Sorensen, vice president of marketing, say the company has been faced with numerous economic challenges over the years — including a 10-fold increase in the price of tungsten, used to make the shot that differentiates their shells from others made of lead or steel. But through it all, the company has not only persevered, it has thrived.
David Patton/Democrat-Herald
CEO Ralph Nauman with Kelly Sorenson, vice president of marketing, shows their sports pack at Environ-Metal Inc. in Sweet Home.
“We’re on our third or fourth business plan,” Nauman said. “About 2005, prices went up and we were afraid we might close, but we learned that we can figure things out and made the necessary changes.” Sorensen added that the company is focused on “our mission, which is to innovate and create new products.” Nauman said 86 percent of tungsten re-
sources are in China, so it’s almost a closed marketplace when it comes to raw materials pricing. It has been their commitment to meeting the needs of its customers from coastto-coast that has driven Environ Metal to constantly revamp its product line and to grow from 11 manufacturing line employees to 16. The company’s newest product, Hevi-
Duty, is an example of meeting a consumer need, while thinking out of the box. Nauman said the number of registered handgun owners has grown by 37 million in recent years, and many are women who want protection in their homes. “We are known for high-density shot, but in this case, we realized there is a growing market for home protection,” Nauman said.
Facts about Environ Metal, the Sweet Home company that develops shotgun shells under the brand name Hevi-Shot: • The company added a new 7,200-square-foot warehouse last year, which increased warehouse capacity by about 50 percent. • The company prides itself on using mid-valley suppliers wherever possible. Local suppliers include companies such as Viper Northwest and Ameri-Tool of Albany. • The company has grown from 11 manufacturing line employees to 16.
“But, you don’t want the shot to travel a long distance and possibly endanger someone else.” From that need, Environ Metal developed shot that is made from compressed metal powder that dissipates once it strikes a hard surface, such as concrete or rock. Hevi-Duty’s individual pellets can easily be crushed with a pair of pliers. SHELLS continued on B3
For Hamann, a big piece of the puzzle is finding spaces for creative people — the sort of person he labeled as being “one standard deviation off center.” Another key, Hamann said, is making sure that people understand it’s OK to fail.“How do we help people feel OK with failing a few times?” “I think one of the great impediments to innovation is comfort,” he said.“How do you push people into a space that has a little discomfort?“ LBCC recently scored an innovative success with the opening of its Advanced Transportation Technology Center in Lebanon, which offers training to students on vehicles that use alternative fuels. It’s a partnership between the college and the private sector, and Hamann said to expect more of those partnerships in the future. “We have some good businesses to work with” in the mid-valley, Hamann said. Some of those businesses have been key players in helping the college rethink its curriculum, especially as it grapples with the tough challenge of educating today’s students to excel in jobs that may not even exist yet. For Spinrad, who oversees research at OSU, one of the keys to innovation has been increasing the institution’s tolerance for risk-taking — not always an easy task in academia. In addition, he said, he’s been pushing the notion of “hybrid vigor” — the idea that sometimes the best work involves collaborating with other researchers who may be in other departments. That can be a trick in an institution of higher learning, where the silos that separate departments and academic disciplines have been under construction, in some cases, for decades, if not centuries. But the goal is to make it clear that the university values these cross-disciplinary efforts, and one of the best ways to do that is to make sure that it supports those efforts with guidance and the necessary resources. To those faculty members willing to take the leap, Spinrad said,“We have a responsibility to say, ’The university will help you.’“ It’s a different environment these days for researchers at universities, Spinrad noted, and that worries him a bit: “The accountability for research results from the public has gone way up,” he said, and that puts a premium on research that could have some immediate impact in the market. But it might shortchange so-called basic research, the applications from which might not be apparent for years or decades. If that kind of basic research doesn’t get funded unless it can answer the question of how it can be immediately used, Spinrad said, it might put a damper on future innovation. “No one asked Einstein that question,” Spinrad said.“No one asked Watson and Crick that question.”
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Shells, pellets match trends Sorensen said the four-person administrative staff answers all phone New shells calls, and it was from conversations with customers that led to the comAnother new product that has pany to develop its own line of shotbeen well-received in the market gun barrel choke tubes made from place is Hevi-Steel, shotgun shells that feature half metal and half tung- aircraft-grade stainless steel. Many of those tubes — which atsten shot, which greatly reduces protach to the end of shotgun barrels to duction and retail costs. change shot patterns — are manufacA box of 10 Hevi-Shot shells costs tured by Viper Northwest of Albany. about $45 retail, but a box of 25 Another mid-valley supplier is Hevi-Metal shells retails for about Ameri-Tool of Albany, which provides $28.A box of Hevi-Steel — all steel shotgun shell wadding, Sorensen said. shot shells — retails for just $15.99. In addition to its sales growth, EnviTo carry those shells, Environ Metal ron Metal is proud to have added a teamed up with Plano products — the same company that has manufac- new 7,200-square-foot warehouse tured fishing tackle boxes for last year, which increased warehouse decades — to develop a Sports Pack. capacity by about 50 percent. The product is a water-resistant plasThree new shell loading machines tic box with a handle that holds up will be installed, Nauman added. to four boxes of shotgun shells. Nauman said he hopes the com“The Sports Pack was introduced pany will be able to announce a in June and has sold like gangmajor breakthrough in bullet techbusters,” Sorensen said. nology within the next year. Environ Metal customers are nation“It’s something we’ve worked on wide, such as Cabela’s and Bass Pro for 14 years,” Nauman said. Shops, but include numerous Pacific Linn County reporter Alex Paul can be contacted Northwest outlets such as Bi-Mart, at 541-812-6114 or by emailing alex.paul@lee.net. Dick’s and Sportsman’s Warehouse. Continued from B2
David Patton/Democrat-Herald
Aaron Elia of Lebanon boxes shells recently at Environ Metal in Sweet Home. At right, Hevi-Duty, a home defense shotgun shell, is the newest product from the company.
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Wearable tech grows Mid-valley companies present ideas at pub talk BY ANTHONY RIMEL
Advanced wrist communicators and computer-interface visors have been in science fiction stories for decades, but the devices have become reality over the last few years. As the field grows, a handful of local companies are trying to carve out a niche in the market. The Willamette Innovators Network hosted a pub talk on the topic in March in Corvallis, at which representatives of three companies in the field spoke. Tim Romanowski, a board member with Willamette Innovators Network, said the topic of wearable technology was selected for the event because it’s the next phase of technology. “It’s going to be as disruptive as the iPhone,” he said.
Revolution Robotics Aaron Oki Moore, director of Revolution Robotics, a Corvallis company, said that while the number of devices in the wearable technology category is growing, the vast majority of wearable technology devices on the market are smart watches. “We have a long ways to go in wearable tech,” he said. Moore said Revolution Robotics is trying to help open up the creation of wearable devices to independent makers and small entrepreneurs with a product it developed called the Wearables Reference Platform (WaRP). It uses an Android oper-
ating system about half the size of a stick of gum, which has a modular design so that other hardware can be attached to it. Moore said the idea of the product is to combine all the components necessary for a microcomputer into a single standard board, which can then be used as a tool for people to experiment in wearable technology.The hardware and software are all open source, so creators can make their own components to plug into the board. “We’re hoping to introduce products to allow companies to go out and innovate,” said Moore. Moore compared the device to open source hardware platforms such as Aurdino and Raspberry Pi, around which communities of independent creators have grown. Moore said the challenge of wearable technology is building it small enough for consumers to actually wear. Having all the computer components on one board, which can connect to other components wirelessly or through USB, reduces the time and complexity of making wearable devices. Moore said Revolution Robotics builds prototypes and proof-of concepts for other companies, and it built the WaRP board over the last six months for Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor. Moore said the WaRP board could be on the market the second quarter of this year, and would be priced in the $100 to $150 range. Moore said because the device is open source, someone could potentially buy the components and build their own version of the board, but it would
FYI For more information on wearable technologies, check out these websites: • WaRP Board: www.warpboard.org • Perpetua Power Source Technologies: www.perpetuapower.com • NS Extreme: http://nsextreme.com
probably cost $10,000 to make. By producing a standard board at a higher volume, the companies collaborating on the board can lower the cost, said Moore. The WaRP board is designed for a variety of daughter boards to be attached to it, which could contain other components, such as accelerometers and motion sensors. Moore said the company sees three potential applications for wearable devices using the platform: entertainment and fitness devices, infotainment devices, and medical devices.
Perpetua Power Also speaking at the event was Jerry Wiant, the vice president of marketing for Perpetua Power.The Corvallisbased company designs and manufactures devices that use body heat to generate small amounts of electricity. “All indications are that (wearable technology) is just going to grow,” said Wiant. Wiant said the most common question the company gets is whether its thermal electric power source can power phones. It cannot. However,Wiant said it could be used to power Bluetooth devices. He said the uses for the power source include “ultra low power” devices such as fitness bands, heart rate monitors, and continuous glucose monitors.
Jesse Skoubo/Democrat-Herald
President of the Corvallis chapter of the Project Management Institute Jason Brown of Dallas examines a piece of wearable tech that uses variations in body temperature to create electricity, at the Willamette Innovators Network pub talk in Corvallis this month.
Wiant said the company hopes to have devices on the market by 2015, and it is working with a variety of major electronic companies that are developing products using Perpetua’s power source. “We have more business partners than we can handle,” he said. Wiant said the company’s goal is for the price of the wearable power sources to be competitive with rechargeable batteries.
NSExtreme Another presenter at the talk was Richard
Burright, the founder and CEO of NS Extreme, a company that is developing software that uses accelerometers and gyroscopes already built into iPhones as part of a package that allows extreme sports athletes to track their performance. To show what his software could do, Burright showed a video recorded on a helmet-mounted smartphone worn during a motocross race. It included footage from the phone’s camera synched with graphic displays of other data recorded by the phone, including gforce and speed. He said the data com-
bined with the video allows athletes to analyze their performance and improve. He added that another potential use for the software is “timeshifted competition,” in which people can create a route, record their performance data on it, and send it to a friend for them to attempt.The data then gives them a way to compare their performances. The website for the software said it will be on the market this summer. Burright said the app will likely have a free version, and offer a subscription for $5 to $10 per month with premium features.
Cherry surplus led to new maraschino method BY CANDA FUQUA
W
hether it’s swimming in a cocktail glass at a New York City bar or sitting atop a sundae in a rural Idaho ice cream shop, odds are that the delectable candied cherry came from one of two large Oregon-based maraschino cherry producers. How did Oregon come to corner the U.S. market on the colorful candied fruit? It all began in the 1920s with food technologist Ernest Wiegand, a professor at what is now Oregon State University.Affectionately known as “Prof” to farmers, students and colleagues,Wiegand sought to solve concrete problems in food preservation — perfecting processes of freezing, canning and dehydrating produce. Oregon cherry farmers had a problem, and they knew where to find answers. The fertile Willamette Valley and Columbia River Gorge yielded too many sweet cherries for the fresh-fruit and canned-fruit markets, but Oregon cherries weren’t keeping their firmness when farmers tried their hand at the European process of making maraschino cherries.They were losing 25 to 50 percent of the fragile cherries, which cracked during the first stage — the brining process — according to a 1929 project proposal submitted to the university. So, while maraschino cher-
through that helped to create The cooperative dominates a new industry based out of the food-service market — Oregon, and became the bars, restaurants and cafeterias. • Oregon State University world’s modern method for Gray and Co., which began offered a course titled “Maraschino making maraschino cherries. processing maraschinos in Cherry 102,” from 1994 until about “Oregon cherry growers the 1950s in Forest Grove, five years ago, in which students are richer by several million owns 75 percent of the U.S. made their own batch of maraschidollars a year because of Proretail market — think grono cherries. They also learned diffessor Wiegand,” proclaimed cery stores — and a smaller ferent disciplines in maraschino an article pubportion of the production such as chemistry, prolished March 7, cessing operations, microbiology, food-service “They finally food law and product development. 1943, in the market, acgot a formula • Oregon Agricultural College Oregonian cording to that was safe Professor Ernest Wiegand did not about “Oregon CEO Josh invent maraschino cherries — he State College’s and worked Reynolds.The developed the modern method for food wizard.” company very, very well.” brining them in the maraschino The new closed its Forprocess. Maraschino cherries origiCARL PAYNE brining method est Grove nate from France and Italy, where CHERRY EXPERT led to the plant in reOne shot a year brandied cherries were colored and growth of The cent years flavored with a liqueur made from Local cherry growers asked Dalles Cherry and consoliblack marasca cherries grown in for Wiegand’s help, and he Growers cooperative, which dated its finishing operations Bosnia. delivered, Payne said. Due to dates back to 1924, and the in Hart, Mich., in 2012, but it • Historical articles report that the short cherry season,Wie- formation in 1932 of the the correct pronunciation of has offices in Portland and a gand and his team of profes- Salem-based Willamette maraschino is “mara-skeeno,” brining plant in Dayton. sors and research assistants which is true to its roots from black Cherry Growers co-operaThough there isn’t reliable had only six weeks per year marasca cherries, though modern tive.The two merged in 1984 data on international folks pronounce it “mara-sheeno.” to experiment with brining to become today’s Oregon maraschino sales, both outfits • Most maraschino cherries start solutions. Cherry Growers — a giant in export their products and are out as light-colored sweet cherries, “They only got one shot at the maraschino cherry indusrecognized as global leaders like the Royal Anne and Corum variit each year, so they had to try, along with Portland-based in the industry. eties grown in the Willamette Valley. learn from their mistakes the Gray & Co. They are pickled and bleached in a All of this derived from one previous year,” Payne said. “Between Gray and Oregon man with a lab coat, clipbrine solution, soaked in food color“After several years, they fiCherry Growers — coming and syrup, then packaged and board and pencil-thin musnally got a formula that was sent out to the masses. bined, we probably represent tache — a researcher who safe and worked very, very 65 percent of all maraschino loved to work with farmers well in firming up these ries were wildly popular in cherries in the country,” Oreto solve problems. American domestic cherries gon Cherry Growers CEO 1920s America, partially due so they could be made into “I think that was his baby, to the advent of flavored alTim Ramsey said. maraschino cherries.” coholic drinks, the candied kind of his pet project,” Oregon Cherry Growers The solution to preserving brine 45 million pounds of fruit most likely came from Payne said.“He helped growthe cherries’ firmness came brined cherries imported cherries a year at its plants in ers in making these brines, to light in experiments in from Italy or Spain and botSalem and The Dalles, Ramsey showing them how to test 1929 and 1930. tled on the East Coast. them and making sure they said, processing 24 million The secret? Add calcium were made to the right speci“The whole concept of brinpounds into maraschino fications. He got to know the ing cherries is similar to mak- salts to the brine. cherries and turning the reAlthough he tweaked the ing a pickle,” cherry expert mainder into ingredients for farmers and became a close brining process in other ways, other products, like candy Carl Payne explained.“You friend to them — they all calcium salt was the breakbrine it to make it firm and knew Prof Wiegand.” and ice cream.
FYI
preserve it, then you add sugar and spices to make it sweet.” At 71, Payne has been in the maraschino business for nearly a half-century. He built upon Wiegand’s cherry brining research at Oregon State University under the tutelage of Wiegand’s protégé, Robert Cain.Though Payne retired four years ago as technical services manager of the Oregon Cherry Growers cooperative — one of the two largest maraschino producers in the world — he still consults a bit, he said.
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OSU aims high with unmanned aircraft BY REBECCA BARRETT
bove the tree canopy of the McDonaldDunn Research Forest, a popular public recreation site north of Corvallis, researchers from Oregon State University are using a new tool to study and work in the forest. Unmanned aircraft systems, also known as drones, are being tested for all kinds of forestry applications, including fighting wildfires, detecting disease, forest management, wildlife research, even search and rescue. Michael Wing, an assistant professor in the College of Forestry, was one of the first people involved with the university’s push to bring drone research to OSU. Soon, unmanned helicopters will be counting trees, measuring height and determining volume in board feet, replacing manual calculations that have been the industry standard for decades. “That day is not far away,”Wing said. Wing was one of three OSU faculty members who wrote the research objectives in a successful bid to the Federal Aviation Administration to develop practical applications for unmanned aircraft. An Oregon,Alaska and Hawaii collaboration was approved by the FAA in December as one of six test sites nationwide to integrate the use of drones into the nation’s airspace. Already efforts have netted the university $900,000 in funding from the state Legislature to develop an unmanned aerial systems center in Bend.And Oregon State is part of a 13university team that in April will be applying to become an FAA Center of Excellence for unmanned aircraft systems, which could bring even more research funding to the university. “It’s starting to feel like we’re getting to an area where people are starting to notice us,” said Wing.
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Amanda Cowan/Corvallis Gazette-Times
Oregon State University graduate student Jon Burnett, left, poses with a Beaver-3 fixed-wing unmanned aerial system as professor Michael Wing holds a Y-6 helicopter unmanned aerial system outside Peavy Hall earlier this month.
unmanned aircraft can be used,” Holman said. “Everything is happening very rapidly now.“ OSU is well-positioned to be a leader in developing the uses for unmanned aircraft. “It’s a very exciting time,” Holman said.
Many uses for drones After registering with the FAA to sponsor approved drone flights two years ago,Wing has been involved in more than a dozen flights, and more are scheduled this spring and summer. Unmanned aircraft will be used during controlled burns at McDonald-Dunn, and on the Warm Springs Reservation to monitor 1.6 million acres of the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon. Forestry is just one of many industries where OSU is looking to develop the uses of unmanned aircraft. Rick Spinrad, vice president for research at OSU, said the major development in Oregon right now is with precision agriculture, using unmanned aircraft to monitor and tend to crops. OSU researchers are also using drones to map the coastline and study how beaches respond to environmental changes.
Practical implications Professor emeritus Rob Holman in OSU’s College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, has been studying the ocean
Sky’s the limit
nearshore, an area roughly 10 meters or less from the ocean’s edge, since the 1980s. Holman has been using overhead photography to map the beaches and document the changes caused by environmental stresses.With so many people living in coastal communities, it’s important for planning and land management. “The more we know, the better equipped we are to make informed
decisions,” Holman said. Previously, he installed a system of cameras on top of coastal buildings to monitor the beaches. He always thought unmanned aircraft technology had the potential to be used in his line of work. Now that the FAA allows drone flights within the test site, it’s become a reality. “That gives us a license to address the problems that have kept us from exploring how
In the vast fields of northeastern Oregon, agriculture is done on a scale of hundreds and even thousands of acres. Farmers have used overhead photography in the Columbia Basin for the past 20 years to monitor their crops, said Phil Hamm, an Extension plant pathologist at the Hermiston Agricultural Research Station. An airplane flying at 7,000 feet could produce an 8-inch by 10inch picture with poor resolution.With unmanned aircraft systems, they are getting much more information, Hamm said. “UAVs can take pictures at a much lower elevation, 400 feet,” he said. “They give you the resolution to see individual potato leaves so you can see what the problem is.” The vehicles themselves are not that ex-
Here are facts about the development of unmanned aircraft systems (also known as drones) at Oregon State University: • Unmanned aircraft will be used during controlled burns this summer at McDonald-Dunn Research Forest, and on the Warm Springs Reservation to monitor 1.6 million acres of the Deschutes National Forest in Central Oregon. • The technology could offer breakthroughs for agriculture, as unmanned aircraft can be used to monitor and tend to crops. • The technology also could be used to provide overhead photography to map the beaches and document the changes to areas near the ocean shore caused by environmental stresses. That could be a useful tool for planning and land management in coastal communities. • The vehicles themselves are not that expensive, and are relatively easy to fly.
pensive, and are easy to fly. Coming up with a system to interpret the data is what Hamm and his research team are working on.They are developing cameras to capture different wavelengths of light, rather than straight color or infrared, and systems to interpret the data. “My job is to provide research-based information on how to use this new technology; to use UAVs to save money, or how they can be used for pesticides, fertility aspects, or increase yields,” Hamm said. Based on the flood of international media coverage his work garnered last year, Hamm said that Oregon State is getting lots of attention for developing this technology. What makes OSU’s approach unique is the collaboration between researchers, industry, government and economic development entities. “What we’re doing right now is just the tip of the iceberg,” Hamm said.“The sky is the limit in what this technology might allow us to do in the future.”
Inspired Light looks to make mark in solar energy BY JAMES DAY
For Inspired Light CEO Frank Cloutier, the math is simple: To make your mark in solar energy you need to dramatically increase the power produced ... while reducing cost. Easy, huh? “We’re trying to be high performance and inexpensive,” said Cloutier, who led the team that pioneered the inkjet printer during his HewlettPackard days. “We’re swinging for the fences. That makes it all the more difficult.” The problem with solar energy these days, Cloutier says, is efficiency. The main component of solar panels is silicon and such panels max out at about 15 percent efficiency. “That’s like 85 percent of the gas in your car pooling up around your feet instead of in the tank,” Cloutier said. Cloutier, who started Inspired Light in 2011, is hoping his designs can blow silicon out of the water. “From day one we wanted 30-32 percent,” Cloutier said,“and we we’re doing that right out of the gate. But we want to get above 50 percent. “We decided to use different material. If you are building solar you are in the farming business. But you’re collecting photons, not produce.And turning the photons into electrons. Our goal is no photons left behind.” The process went forward in
FYI Here are some facts about Inspired Light of Corvallis: • The company’s CEO, Frank Cloutier, was one of the leaders of the effort at HewlettPackard to develop the inkjet printer. (For more on that, see the story on page B1.) • The goal at Inspired Light is to improve the efficiency of the solar panels that collect energy from the sun. Those panels typically operate at about 15 percent efficiency; Inspired Light wants to get above 50 percent. • Inspired Light is starting to do some testing with commercial customers and hopes to build a factory in the next year or so.
fits and starts. “We thought about it a lot, and you try a lot of crazy things,” Cloutier said. The breakthrough came during a discussion about items that are sold at dollar stores and that no matter how cheap the product is, the pack-
them made in Oregon or California,” Cloutier said. “We believe we have a pretty clear Andy Cripe/Corvallis Gazette-Times path to go to the 50 percent range.” Frank Cloutier displays a lightThe need for such an addition to our weight solar panel created by his energy grid is urgent, Cloutier said. company, Inspired Light. “This is not just a community At left, reflectors made from therissue,” he said.“No matter what you moform plastic reduce the weight of think of global warming and climate the solar panels. change, we are running out of fossil aging always is cheaper. fuels.We’re doing this for our grandThe Inspired Light team took some kids. If we don’t start coming up cheap plastic packing material — with new approaches we’ll leave the Cloutier’s wife calls if “frustro” beplant poisoned and polluted.” cause it’s so hard to remove — and Inspired Light is starting to do turned it into an optical device. some testing with commercial cusCloutier showed off 7.5- watt and tomers and hopes to build a factory 30-watt modules during a recent in the next year or so. demonstration at his plant in the KoContact reporter James Day at rvis Building in Corvallis. jim.day@gazettetimes.com or 541-758“The way we make it cheap is to 9542. Follow at Twitter.com/jameshday or make it out of cheap materials, all of gazettetimes.com/blogs/jim-day.