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Classification Challenge
AWECS-classification schemes working folder
AWECS Classification Challenge Committee (ACCC)   
Most recent edit of page: Mo/da/yr: 10/24/2012

A classification allows a faster understanding of systems, advantages, and disadvantages according to systems' common main features, and that with a concise presentation. Studies of possible uses of systems will be easier. The joined presentation allows furthering insertion of other systems, corrections, and improvements of presentation. Links on websites or videos can be created. It would be interesting to keep steps before a conversion into PDF which could be a document for presentations towards organizations like NASA.  PierreB http://energykitesystems.net/AWECSclassification/PierreB/CLASSIFICATIONforAWECSbyPBnov2010.pdf    
Discussion:

• 22 Nov 2010 by JoeF: Thank you, PierreB! The PDF attached has no edits by me. The tree format surely will be one of the leading favored presentations.   In PDFs, I can form Internet links per word or symbol, if you supply the URLs.  Further versions, as you wish, can be formed.     I am envisioning various treed versions for various purposes. And even perhaps stepped versions that grow from one page to another view to yet other views.  Others will work in this direction as you are working.   Be sure to send this to people that you think might want to contribute to the Classification Challenge committee.      http://energykitesystems.net/AWECSclassification/PierreB/CLASSIFICATIONforAWECSbyPBnov2010.pdf    [ ] Pierre, I need some help in understanding your phrase: "It would be interesting to keep steps before a conversion into PDF" Please give me your meaning in French and perhaps another version in English. Thanks. Did you mean that we could make the links to websites and videos on the tree presentation before we convert to PDF?       That will eventually be done.      In versions of classifications, when a company name is used, then I am wanting to be sure all companies are presented.    Thanks for continuing work on the classification challenge.   I have not sent your version to anyone, but the PDF is linked from the working page for AWCCC at http://www.energykitesystems.net/AWECSclassification/index.html  which is open to public.   Your suggestions and directives are ever invited.   Do you feel the version just presented holds free-freeflight methods?  Traction over land?  Combined methods that have flygen and groundgen in one system?   If AWECS is said without qualification, then I am aiming to face the scale challenge.  When a presentation is intended for the large-scale AWECS for satisfying grid needs, then title distinction would discern the matter.      If an AWECS is using mechanical energy for direct work like sawing, grinding, pumping fluids, pounding, charging flywheels, moving objects, etc, then no electrical generator is involved.

Committee formation:
Meta-comment regarding committee formation:  WayneG suggests that there might be two committees:
1) One whose goal would be to pursue "People Friendly" Tethered Flight Technology to benefit everyone everywhere.
2) One for those that wish to pursue "People Targeting" Tethered Flight Technology to benefit some people at the expense of others -- such as monitoring people that do not want to be monitored.      WayneG, November 10, 2010.   
In a second round expression: "I think we need two committees. One for those who choose to develop Tethered Flight Technology to benefit mankind in general -- and only with those of like mind -- and only disclosing their knowledge with people of like mind. And the other for those that choose to develop Tethered Flight Technology to aid and assist any group that already has vastly greater military power than its opponents." WayneG, November 11, 2010.   

[[Comment by JoeF on 12Nov2010:  I am happily struggling to hear Wayne; the last clause had to be wrestled before I understood; I here state what I believe to be an example that helped me understand the clause: say an AWECS worker P in Belgium has a set of opponents; those opponents may or may not have much military power; however those opponents stand in relation to other non-self groups; some of those groups may have military power greater than the opponents of Belgium.  I do not know of any opponent of Belgium, as I am not steeped in knowing such matters yet. But suppose that set of opponents is non-empty and we let that set be symbolized as set M. And let the the set of nations or groups that are not opponents to Belgium but have stronger military power than the military power of members of M be symbolized in the set designator O.    Then I am surmising that the second type of committee would hold P of Belgium and be choosing to develop TFT to aid and assist members of O. Why would one help those who are stronger militarily than one's opponents?   One's opponents want to do harm to oneself; those opponents might go gain the assist of more powerful militaries to injure oneself.  So, if one is willing to assist groups militarily more powerful than one's opponents, then one would consider joining the secondly mentioned committee. The tacit implication expressed, I am struggling, is that a member of the secondly mentioned committee would not be people-friendly and would not be wanting dominantly to benefit everyone everywhere. I am having difficulty with this matter because "everyone everywhere" includes those who might choose to harm others directly or indirectly.  So, I am urging that classification schemes be firstly neutral tools with the assumption that the tools    are like wheels and gears, potentially used unfortunately to hurt, but more importantly potentially useful for doing great good.  See a commentary by WayneG placed on a page on its own in this committee's folder. ]]
 
When forming the ACCC, I did not make Wayne's distinction; personally, I want to reach solutions that raise good for people in a manner that replaces systems giving less good; I would not want injustice to be tolerated in the process.  Classifications of AWECS might just be neutral tools that could be used for good or poor.   So, I do not know if ACCC is one or the other of Wayne's two choices or perhaps neutral to the bifurcation suggested; maybe the classification challenge could be met without having to decide what is being pursued relative to friendly factor. Of course, of the many possible classifications, some might be purposed for People Friendly, while some classification might be used in ways that deposit inequity. I have asked WayneG to clarify what he means by "monitoring" people, as such is yet unclear to me; he clarified that monitoring people has to do with collecting and analyzing information comprehensively by the use of airborne devices over countries and their people; that is as I understand from his note, which see.  JoeF, November 11, 2010.

Nominated-not-yet-accepted committee members, so far:   Dave Santos, David Lang, Wayne German (iff there is a "People Friendly" mission to a committee), Dave Culp, Richard Ruiterkamp,  

NOMINATIONS ARE STILL OPEN:  M2516 of Nov. 11, 2010.
October 19, 2010, e-mail to DaveS, JohnO, WayneG, AlexanderM, and PierreB: Rough outline started. PierreB has done some significant work on classification. See also our two methods files: see above for the two links.

Accepted their membership in ACCC:  Alexander Muzhichkov (AlexanderM or Alex Mu or AlexM), Joe Faust (JoeF), Pierre Benhaïem (PierreB), ________, ___________, ___________

Notes to protem secretary for the committee may be sent to JoeF:      Editor@UpperWindPower.com

• Some meta-comments put on the table by committee members:
   
  • In 2004 Dave Lang put forward a classification scheme.    http://drupal.drachen.org/sites/default/files/pdf/Journal%20Issue%2016.pdf  Some distinction therein: low-tech versus high-tech.  Then he constrained focus to power level range from "municipal to small domestic."
         He identified five methods of producing electricity:
    1. Ladder Mill,
    2. Reel,
    3. Fly Gen,
    4. Buggy
    5. Sail.

    In the article, DaveL specifically  put aside bifurcations as to type of wing used in systems.    [[Commentary by JoeF on Nov. 11, 2010:  2techs x 2ormore power levels x 5 methods=20 or more. Then upon the 12 parameters: 20 or more x12 parameters = 240 or more concerns]]     However, DaveL went further in the article to make a comparison even with a kind of metric over 12 parameters; the rating produced a best to least best  or "bad" scheme.

    1. maximum power potential
    2. scalability (ability to accommodate a range of power)
    3. practicality
    4. potential for autonomous operation
    5. manufacturing cost relative to return on investment
    6. prototyping cost
    7. complexity
    8. safety relative to design intent
    9. environmental impact
    10. accommodating wind variability
    11. probability of success when demonstrated
    12. probability of operational success
         
  • In 2009, PierreB and JoeF has a record of some work on the classification challenge. Such notes will be brought forward and placed on the committee's table.
     
  • July 1, 2010:  Richard Ruiterkamp, see below.
     
  • Nov. 11, 2010 from PierreB:   A good classification help people see what are the advantages, disadvantages, and possible applications.
    
    For example for automation system a dynamic flygen has the advantage of only one pattern of flight. On over points reel-out is better but automatic systems will must manage two patterns of flight (reel-out, reel-in which are power and expense phases) .
    
    With a good classification it will be possible to attribute a coefficient of estimated efficiency about several parameters: output, but also reliability among other considerations (three ratios for implementation for example).
     
  • Nov. 9, 2010, from JoeF in e-mail to nominees stated some motions: AWECS Classification Challenge Committee (ACCC)
    Do you accept being on the committee? Let me know, so I may keep (or not) your name on the file. Thanks.
    Pierre Benhaïem, Dave Santos, Joe Faust, David Lang, Wayne German, Dave Culp, Richard Ruiterkamp, Alexander Muzhichkov
    http://www.energykitesystems.net/AWECSclassification/index.html  is a space where some work has been collected.
    
    Committee mission: (this certainly may be revised by committee consensus)
    Come up with one or more classification schemes to fit effective purposes. Name the solutions.
    Purposes could fly over hobby, sport, science, replacement of other fuels, etc.
    
    Some motions:
    1. Leave out no important method. Find a home for each method.
    2. Scheme would have a place for each known method.
    3. Avoid over-simplification and over-complexity.
    4. Theme solutions could cut the possibilities in different ways. There need not be just one scheme on the table.
    5. Perhaps classification experts could be found and brought into ACCC.
    6. In some solutions, comparisons may dominate; in other solutions, one might not see practical efficiency comparisons.
    7. Committee membership may be open to other interested parties; please suggest others as fitting.
    8. Stay open to the literature for modifications and updating of descriptive scheme.
    9. Reach a level of clarity where publishing and promoting "AWECS Classification" would be desired. Or some other title.
    
    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/AirborneWindEnergy/message/1739 
    
    Creative design and engineering may bolster some forgotten or neglected method into higher choice in later years.
    What is "hybrid" in one scheme might be mainstream in another scheme.
     
  • Nov. 11, 2010, from JoeF:   I am giving large pause over the potential of having several possibly useful classifications.   I am perceiving one type of classification that fully avoids getting into advantages, disadvantages, parametric measuring or comparing or contrasting; that is, such a classification would be blind to "efficiency" or "reliability" while presenting mechanical possibility.    However, that is one type; then other types of classifications certainly come to mind, like suggested by PierreB and another from RichardR.   PierreB's parametric classification would perhaps have the potential of ever-changing the number reports on established parameters; the quantity of parameters goes beyond efficiency and reliability; e.g., acceptance by government could be a parameter; safe for animals, pleasantness to neighbors, scale, sort of energy, life, ...    The oversimplified classification scheme told in the white paper of LTA Windpower recently might work for that company, as here paraphrased by JoeF:  all AWECS are infeasible; our method forms the other branch of the classification, the one with best hope at winning the big shakeout of methods; two classes: others and ours.
     
  • RichardR invites editing of the Wikipedia articles that deal with HAWP in order to reflect key distinctions, see below.
     
  • AWECS Classification Challenge Committee (ACCC)
    has been born; the set of committee members is open; if you want to be on the working committee, please express your interest to the secretary protem.  

    And certainly welcome from All: commentary toward obtaining effective classification schemes that may be set high for viewing and possible use. Anticipated are several classification schemes that face particular purposes.  Pioneering designers might enjoy one type of classification of AWECS. Investors might find a classification that can be worked to help them decide where to put their money.  Airspace controllers may benefit from classification; indeed, agents may provide their own classification scheme for governance. AWEIA International may want to have a scheme that is workable for membership purposes.    Within SportsAWE there may develop a classification that distinguishes sporting activities. Etc.  

    Note, there is a very simple system: All others and mine.  Such a simple system might have a narrow use, but it just may be very powerful for the one entity using the "mine" system.

    Another classification may also have very narrow effective use: Those that work today and those that do not work today. Two branches. Opinions vary on which methods would go into the works-today branch.

    The fuzzy mission statement for the committee will probably get less fuzzy in time.  

    Scratching records for the committee so far:
    http://www.energykitesystems.net/AWECSclassification/index.html

    May AWE come up with some cool classification systems!
     

  • Nov. 11, 2010: "Neutrality is necessary for a good classification. However, a classification can let making easy the appreciation of qualities according to "parameters" as efficiency, reliability etc"  PierreB. 
     
  • The various free-flight AWECS have free-flight anchors, if you will:
    The LTA couple with HTA scheme has each end device of the free-flight tether as a relative anchor.
    
    The Richard Miller / Dale C. Kramer two-kite scheme again has the tether ended with a kite; each kite is a relative anchor to the other. DaveS, JoeF, and WayneG have been forwarding the core Miller system with extensions for travel as well as for net energy production for use onboard or for transfer via batteries, or energy transfer via powerbeaming.
    
    The free-flight AWECS that feature RATs onboard have the base free-flight vehicle as the base anchoring of the turbine onboard.
  • See also free-flight tetherless dynamic soaring FEG  Tetherless Dynamic Soaring FEG Method         Mine the shears and spark-off-load the gain ...
     
  • Joe, Nice find,   Pete Lynn, the son, wrote the linked piece, his working name is Pete, to distinguish from his dad, although its signed "Peter S". The experiment shown was assisted by Dave Culp, who gave me one of the left-over caged flygens for my West Coast stash, maybe even the one in the photo. I met Pete at Makani during a KiteShip visit & saw him again at HAWPCON09, where he smiled as i flew a 3.5m Peter Lynn parafoil next to Doug's Sky Serpent. It was some of Pete's emails around 2003 on a physics forum that seem to have triggered a lot of the current boom in research.
    
    Peter Lynn, the dad, is a very active AWE thinker; the latest clue, besides his great writings, is that TUDelft is flying a 50sq m Peter Lynn Parafoil (Drool). There is at least one other great dynasty in AWE, Billy & Corey Roeseler.
  •  

See thread in group  M1739

• See three methods files in our AWE community site:
  • File 1:  http://www.energykitesystems.net/0/methods/index.html
  • File 2:  http://www.energykitesystems.net/0/KITESA/FAQelectric/methods.html
  • Airborne lattices
  • The project of putting on table all known AWE methods has not been accomplished yet.
  • Scale over ten scales is not yet enough appreciated by those working fast for big grid wins.
  • Hybrid methods are often overlooked by individual project teams that are focused on their system.
  • Specialized tasking AWECS are frequently overlooked by those who aim to have a classification system that puts their favorite scheme strongly centered.
  • Note: Aloft blades spinning to drive reciprocating multi-membered sub-tethers for driving groundgen or groundpump: See Loyd's tri-tether in faired shroud tether.  See Faust's duo-tether reciprocator scheme.  See the loop or fan-belt methods. See also different Dave Santos' Tri-Tether with looping wings beneath lifter kites in a groundgen scheme.  See also the tri-string of Lambros Lois for a groundgen.    Distinguish these various methods and provide firm place in classification schemes for each of them.     M2610
  • See the free-flight scheme of LTA coupled with HTA kite. No tether to ground. Distinguish this from RATs in either kite of the Miller-Kramer scheme (Richard Miller foundation; then extension via conversation with Dale C. Kramer by Faust; and similarly with Dave Santos and Wayne German.)    M2607
     
  • 2010 May: "And my personal life-time's ambition is to make a craft that could fly anywhere by the difference in the velocities in the air at low and high altitudes. The wings could be made to be neutrally buoyant to where one could float at 5000 feet say and the other at 2000 feet."  ~~Wayne German.  Source.     Free-Flight AWE method here using two LTA kites on one tether; besides travel, energy excess may be mined turning the flying; the energy could be used in the system for living, entertainment, manufacturing, or power beamed to other aircraft or ground receptors.
     
  • RATS:  1921 : MEANS FOR CREATING EMERGENCY POWER FOR AIRPLANE RADIO GENERATOR by CARLTON DAVID PALMER

Wiki goal, two main files. Develop other files on companies.

Terms of description of a given system.

• Miscellaneous aspects of systems: 
  1. What work is being done?   Kite applications?
  2. Is the AWECS for peace? For aggression? For defense from an aggressor? 
  3. Does the system weaponized or not?
  4. Profit potentials?
  5. Environmental impact quotient of an AWECS?
  6. Is the system made from COTS parts or not?
  7. What motivates having a particular AWECS?   Love, hunger, greed, profit, recognition, passion, creativity, addiction, peace, joy, learning, save earth, ...
  8. Purpose?  Play, recreation, meditation, prayer, hobby demonstration, science, platform to test materials and means, education, physical exercise, supply electricity to those in most need, replace coal and oil, provide a solution for green energy, etc.  This might overlap purpose, but there are distinctions; this note--no doubt--confuses purpose from motivation.
  9. Is there a an electric generator or not? 
  10. What type of energy form is dominant for the system's output?   Electricity? Mechanical? Potential (gravity position)? Kinetic? Chemical? Light? Sound? Heat?
  11. Method of getting the energy type to intended point of use or distribution?
  12. What is the customer set for a given AWECS?   What do those customers want from the AWECS?
  13. How immediately is the converted energy use for practical work?
  14. Where is the generator, if one?  On wing, just adjacent to wing, on tether, hung from tether, hung from wing, on ground, no generator.
  15. Are generators in both aloft and ground position in one system?
  16. Is the tethered system in free-flight all the time, part of the time?
  17. Is the system free-flight or not?  If not, what is the mooring of the tether set?
  18. How many lines in the tether set for the system?
  19. How many wings in the wing set of the system?
  20. How many mooring points are there in the system?
  21. Is the system to face sea-spray or not?
  22. How many humans will be needed to operate the system?
  23. Is the system dominantly immediate in storing energy?
  24. Is the flight body dominantly rigid-wing?
  25. Is the flight body dominantly fabric structure?
  26. Is the flight body a combination of inflatable members and open fabric structures?
  27. Does the system drive a moving structure on the ground? Is the ground-moved vehicle in turn-table or carousel manner, or is the ground vehicle on a long linear path or rail for cyclic left-to-right-etc. cycles? Or is the ground vehicle dedicated for very long runs along rail or waterway or cable?
  28. Is the system primarily using one flight body or trained or coteried or branched flight bodies?
  29. Is the aloft system using arch constructs?  Train constructs?
  30. Does the system employ pilot lifter bodies (kites or kytoons or balloons or satellites)?
  31. Is the system moor-based in satellites with tethers to upper atmosphere?
  32. Is the system intended for earth winds, space winds, planetary winds, water flows, fluid flows in commercial processes, etc. ?
  33. Is the system with conductive tethers or not?
  34. Does the system emphasize robotic control or active control or passive control?
  35. Does the system self-land and self-launch?
  36. Does the system involve HAWT or VAWT self-lifting
  37. Does the system involve HAWT or VAWT with auxiliary lifters?
  38. How is the system multiplied into farms?
  39. Does the system stay aloft during severe storms or not?
  40. How many tether lines are used?
  41. Is there a control unit aloft?  What communications are involved? GPS? Spatial positioning sensors?  Force sensors?
  42. Is an expert program involved in the control of the system?
  43. Rocking arm?
  44. Tipping boom? Counter-weighted?
  45. Are there inline flipper wing foils working?
  46. If aerostat based, is recharge from aloft-manufacturer gases?
  47. Does the system use the fan-belt mechanism?
  48. Are batteries or ultracapacitors charged aloft and brought down? Cyclically?
  49. Are bladed turbines involved?
  50. Are there two or more alternating flying aircraft in the system?
  51. Is the system using the axle of a ground vehicle to charge batteries or generate electricity?
  52. Is the system primarily being used to pump water or other fluids?
  53. Application focus of the system?
  54. What is the the use of drag and lift in the system?
  55. Is the system using piezoelectric methods?
  56. Does the system mine the rotation of the tether?
  57. Does the system mine tether vibrations?
  58. Does the system employ PV surfaces for energy making for control or for basic energy production?
  59. Is the system an aerostat with embedded bladed turbines with gen aloft?
  60. Is the system an aerostat with bladed turbines that drive tether loops that in turn drive ground generators or ground works?
  61. Is the motion of a the lofted system radio-controlled by a live human?
  62. Is the system a combination of various systems each significantly different?
  63. Does the system use RATS as slaves to the major AWECS working elements?
  64. Is the system an "ever-up" system? If not, what are the system's service cycles?
  65. Does the system have major secondary purposes (photography, surveillance, habitat, travel, transportation of goods, message satellite element, advertising, etc. )
  66. Is the system with power options?
  67. Does the system launch via power devices?
  68. Does the system have safety-critical challenges solved?
  69. Can the flying body detach and robotically fly home?
  70. Does the system have major morphability for handling storms?
  71. Is traction the primary offer of the system (to move people, boats, ships, goods, materials, soil scraping, soil tilling, cleaning of trash or oil from water surfaces, scraping lake beds, harvesting crops, providing recreational rides, etc. form one place to another place)
  72. Is the traction-dominant system involving also water turbines for generating electricity or pumping?
  73. Is the system with reel-out-and-in method?
  74. Is the system a lifting mass to drop mass system?   E.g. Swoops to lift up glider only to release glider for flight for various purposes.  Or, swoop  to load up with water; lift water high for various purposes, say drop the water onto crops, onto fires, onto flats to be cleaned.  Or to swoop down with mine poker-detonators.  Or to swoop to make noise.   Herd animals.
  75. What scale is the focus of the system?  E.g., ten scales from micro to international free-flight.
  76. Is the system intended for long life or short life?
  77. How is the system handling safety-critical issues?
  78. Does the system require what kind of airspace governance?
  79. What kind of mooring is used? Static? Mobile?  Is the mooring moving on surface of waters? Beneath surface of waters? In the atmosphere?
  80. Is the system a version of laddermill?
  81. Does the system employ cycles of gas compression/expansion?
  82. Does the system work to hold up aerial cables which cables are used for transportation?
  83. Arch or not?
  84. Lattice complexity from no line to single line, to massive web of lines?
  85. Ten scales announced at  conference in 2009 by JoeF.
  86. Kite types
  87. Is the wing inflatable HTA?
  88. Is the wing inflatable LTA?
  89. Is the wing solid aerogel with skin?
  90. Tether types
  91. Operations wind speed range?
  92. Mooring types
  93. Fluid type that embeds the wings or embeds the tether or embeds the mooring for the system: air, water, water and air, plasma, food, soil. 
  94. Construction material used to make the wing?
  95. Intended life for the constructed system? Short-term? Long term? Single-use, say for demonstration or educational purposes followed by full decommissioning and recycling of raw materials?
  96. Launch method?
  97. Stopping system from functioning method? (landing, pausing, parking, ...)
  98. Mass of system.
  99. Mass per Watt?
  100. Winners of verified rule-based field competitions? What rule set?
  101. Scalable?  
  102. Method of extending?
  103. Farming method?
  104. Array vulnerability?
  105. Vulnerability to vandalism?
  106. How does the system face lightning challenges?
  107. Will the AWECS be facing icing challenges? How will the system mitigated the icing challenge.
  108. Does the AWECS lend itself to optimal use of air space verticality saturation for energy harvesting?
  109. Scaled purpose.
  110. Now-allowed-by-governing-agents AWECS
  111. "A control system for a windmill kite"  [Used by Roberts regarding kite with HAWT autorotational blades as lifting body.]

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