JoeF,

Yes, there is a potential conflict over the UpWind TM, but also a chance opportunity to integrate around the name. The UpWind research consortium is doing fantastic work exploring the outer limits of "conventional" turbine design and may even lend itself to doing the same for AWE as it matures and conventional wind energy moves into the field.

Pietro is a talented engineer/experimentalist and very easy-going. For now there is no direct conflict or confusion issue and Pietro can hold fast to his TM claim within AWE while stating intent not to conflict with the UpWind project, which may after all just be of limited duration as its mission is completed. Surely the UpWind project has better things to do than play whack-a-mole with AWE and they might eventually concede the AWE use or compensate Pietro to clear their own path to AWE activity.

Its an open question what an unlikely legal TM battle would decide, as there are reasonable grounds for both sides.

daveS

Alex,

Just to be clear, the nice GoFlyKite airplanes are not really kites and would require major modification to work as AWECS.

Be careful not to offend all the "just talk" folks, as many of them make great contributions. Many of KiteLab's experiments were inspired by "just talk" folks like Wayne German. This warning does not apply to lazy experimenters ;^)

See kitelabgroup.com for a small sampling of "talk-driven" AWE studies,

daveS

Note: This message was withheld for a few weeks as it contained information under nondisclosure and to allow internal (WOW) stakeholders prior notice of certain particulars. It was a reply to an earlier post by Mario Marchitti. The latest news from the KiteGen team is that small scale kite flights have just begun on site. An upcoming post will detail the "WOW America" biz plan announced below ("intoxicating news").

================================

It was a highlight of my EU AWE Tour for Carlo Perassi, an WOW board member and control engineer to take me to see the KiteGen utility-scale experimental project. I got to meet Mario Marchitti, an aeronautical engineer also on the WOW board, and directly see progress toward completing the giant prototype. The effort is credible and heroic, but the next stages will be the toughest, with many new lessons to absorb, because the project pushes the AWE critical-path painfully hard. 

We must salute the Italian AWE community & its vision. The WOW investment fund is unique, the first to attract many small investors with a diversified AWE investment approach, now poised to quickly grow from its initial multi-million dollar level to the many billions required to truly perfect our technology. Carlo Perassi outlined WOW's vision at AWEC2011 to a receptive audience. Besides its pioneering utility-scale experiment, the WOW Fund/holding_company strategy includes diversification supporting an ever broader selection of AWE teams. A Top-Ten Italian institutional investor (NDA only) looks like a promising near-term partner. There is a pending public campaign to raise funds in the US investment market. "WOW America", a subsidiary to the Italian parent, could be bigger than when the Beatles landed on US soil.

A new WOW direction, as the new funding kicks in, is R&D support of low-complexity small-scale systems that are already working well as prototypes. This includes KitEnergy (Mario Milanese's start) and the sort of small systems needed for global Energy Equity of disadvantaged populations (KiteLab Group's focus). New contenders will be validated by field-trials (think ARPA-E) and the best systems brought to market for crucial early revenue. If you are getting good results from your AWE prototypes, WOW is eager to work with you. The WOW delegation personally visited PierreB (who could not attend AWEC2011) in France on their way to the conference (in a big motorhome that carried us back to Italy). WOW also hopes to direct support to third-party academic research, as funding grows, a critical area badly neglected by previous venture investment.

Several companies in the high-end AWE space, such as Ampyx, SkyMill, and Makani/Joby, are beginning to actively partner with WOW. It was nice to find Grant had already established a close WOW-SkyMill relationship (Boeing & Sikorsky connections are in play). If your AWE team is a strong contender & wants to join a key part of the community dynamic emerging from AWEC2011, register your intent with WOW; don't get left behind. Please vollunteer to launch WOW America (pre-revenue with sweat-equity). The diversification of WOW is also calculated to help keep the KiteGen project on-track to meet its ambitious goals in the next few years.

Mario,

We agree that there are many weak AWE players mixed with the strong, and that hype is a danger to us all. TUDelft recently counted 60 different "institutional" efforts!

Note that the US ARPA-E Contest format is being designed (by the open AWE community) to try and clear away most of the engineering uncertainty. The "Leuven Conference Consensus" clearly stands for an open evaluation format with global participation. The technical judging should be done by the best independent international academic and industrial aerospace minds (including NASA/ESA/etc.). Social dimensions should play a role. Its important that all worthy efforts like KiteGen be fairly included in a formal high-profile selection process that will drive massive investment. Even some obscure "just talk" idea could emerge as a real winner in an honest contest. Its proposed that WOW America channel new investment naturally unleashed by this sort of process, indirectly helping the WOW Italy parent meet all its specific goals.

Please help us formulate the needed tests & scoring matrices & also help refine the AWE critical-path analysis (pending report) being made available to WOW and other investors.

Its hard to be too enthusiastic about what the combined genius of the AWE community can do. Its probably the safest investment bet (diversified risk) as well, but only history definitively judges true winners,

daveS

The Brazilero Fish Kite that "Shaman Mauro" makes has a two stick frame much like the classic Asian fighter, but the crossbar is far lower, near the Center of Pressure (CP), and the kite generally requires a tail. This geometry creates a highly swept wing. If nothing else were to change in the design the kite would suffer from excess pendulum oscillation and the long unsupported Leading Edges (LE) would tend to strum destructively with chaotically separated flow, especially in veering wind. It would be a poor kite and require excess tail.

Instead, the genius of the kite is to incorporte large loose flaps of material along the two LE that widen as they run aft. The flap area has several functions: It curls over the top creating a curved LE that has a rip-stop (rip resistence) quality. The flap creates a higher quality thicker airfoil from a single-skin membrane, with a real stagnation zone replacing a turbulent "knife-edge" for greater AoA tolerance. Marguerite independently discovered this wing principle for her brilliant Jackite bird kites, which fly superbly. The flap acts as a complaint Eddy Flap keeping delicate Bernoulli lift attached at the most critical region of the foil. Its obviously a Kline-Fogleman foil (KFm-2), but a cool prior-art soft version. The flap is also an active feedback stabilization device that as the wind veers turbulently, the leading wing adds drag by flapping harder, correcting orientation.

The flap also animates the kite visually, making it far more charismatic. I asked Mauro if he considered the flaps as decoration or a functional feature and he did not grasp the question no matter how i posed it. This is exactly what Heidegger described as the proto-Hellenic sense of the word Techne, where the Greeks did not distinguish between Art and Technology, which we can surmise was the universal paleo world-view.

In summary, we can add the"LE-Eddy" or "Leddy Flap" to our bag of tricks to make quality membrane kite wings for AWE.

DavidC,

I'm having a real hard time finding a picture of the type and may resort to photographing Mauro's wing. A Thai Pakpao (female gendered fighter) is close in plan also known as a "fish", but clearly different in operation, darting flight with a thin flat foil rather than a flappy self-flyer. I have seen relatives online and at the World Kite Museum. The flap is often done in fringe.

Some added notes-

A lot depends on the "dimensionless stiffness" of the flap membrane. The small kites use the stiffness of the paper (or fabric or plastic). A larger version might need curled battens for best effect.

Ito and Komura also used the curled LE and even tested the reverse case (curled down- not so good).

A bird's wing uses many of the LE mechanisms listed in this topic. Birds use eddy flap mechanism extensively.

This sort of LE can be stretched from pure fabric or rolled over a round spar.

The tear resistence is due to avoiding stress concentration along a sharp edge.

Mauros LE flaps end as short pennants off the spar wingtips. This feature has various advantages covered in other posts. With satisfaction i note Airbus has adopted "sharklet" wing tip devices for 2012. We are seeing the biomimetic refinements predicted by models like my smelly old Bluefin Tuna fin. The new A320 wings are scimitar planforms folded upward, so lets predict eventual prestressing curled downward as an evolutionary trajectory toward fully folding wings under width constraint.

daveS

PS Was it Roger who was doing an AWE master plan, not you?

A favorite read is to follow the monthly online newsletters of Peter Lynn, the great kite engineer who has experimented and contributed in every branch of the art. He follows AWE closely and will likely be a major player who seems to come out of nowhere. The newsletters reveal strategic progress toward key elements of early large scale AWE.

Peter is flying ever more advanced superkites of a 1000sq meter class. He is stacking megakites of a few hundred sq meters each into powerful trains. These experiments are easy to overlook as they occur as distracting cartoon "theme kites". Despite the fact that the pro kite show pilot lifter kite is working well enough in that app, he is focusing on pilot-lifter design most intensely, a key AWE tool where every improvement is golden. Peter is an invited guest flier around the world and sees mega-stacks under pilots as a definite trend with serious kiters (which he and Dave Gomberg particularly helped create).

The long history of the pilot kite, with working kites in a train underneath, is very distinguished. In modern AWE the methods are once again a hot research area. The lifter s basic power and stability can hold up any sort of high performance power wings, turbines, etc.. (KiteLab Group has consistently refined, tested, and advocated these concepts for AWE). Its mostly a matter of updating classic precedents with modern insights and materials. Modern controls can be layered on for unbeatable reliability.

Over a period of decades Peter has lined up industrial scale kite production in China and discovered, by outdoor testing in NZ, superior kite cloth able to withstand over 10000hrs of high UV and mixed gale& hurricane force winds, doubling our previous optimistic estimates of soft kite working life.

Despite the serious physical and mental damage a lifetime of kites have works, Peter Lynn might still be the best director of a "Kite Energy Manhattan Project".

SkyHigh in all its variations and combinations is hereby reserved as a trademark for commercial AWE use worldwide under the KiteLab Group circle of partners. SkyHigh Fund trade name in particular is in immediate use in business planning.

daveS

It was proposed on this forum that three months be a reasonable window to design for ARPA-E a superb AWE contest that would result in a bonanza of scientific and technical data. Instead, a group of three forum members pivately took over, cut off all outside input, and submitted a deeply flawed contest design to suit a funding-oriented agenda. They acted mostly in secrecy, but known details depict a contest design that disregards key early public input such as the danger of wind-luck, or the desirable role of academia as a third-party-validator of technical merit.

The accusation made by the insiders is that we, as a community, failed to step up, but this is just not true, especially for those who naturally thought the three-month design timeframe was in play. Good input was trickling in, but the insiders did not wait for more, nor did they publicly inform of the cut-off of all input.

DImitri took the lead in this back-room dynamic and has been asked to provide a complete report of what has been proposed in our community name to ARPA-E. Should he fail in this duty, a reconstructed version will have to do, pending a FOIA request.

Please do not hesitate to continue to provide great ideas to make sure the contest is not only fair, but a real contribution to AWE knowledge. Thank you for supporting best-practices like information transparency, sound science and engineering, and proper stakeholder representtion in the ARPA-E contest design process.

Congratulations to SkySail Team-

JoeF, thanks for collecting all AWE Contest information in an open format.

To summarize basic requirements already proposed, but badly neglected by the insider process-

Its essential that the contest not be a matter of windluck. The solution is for contestants to perform a qualifying round demonstration at any time during a qualifying phase.

Given previous ARPA-E experience, there will be thousands of entrants to vett, so planners must be well prepared for a crush of entries.

After qualifying contestants should be rigorously judged by the best scoring matrix experts can devise. Critical dimensions such as safety and ROI (return on investment) will be judged. Experts must not be relegated to mere stopwatch and ergometer officials. Contestants must not win simply by spending wildly on poor designs. Major increased cost factors such as helium dependence must be accounted for.

Every effort should be made to generate useful data for sceince and engineering. The final rounds of the contest would ideally be direct comparative fly-offs in a closely observed format at a venue like Wallops.

There must be some ability to identify and reward merit that does not fit a rigid contest design. The judges must have latitude to make sure great merit does not "fall thru the cracks". A truly important idea might have a trivial externality to mitigate by judging consenus. A contestant may deserve a chance to fix some obscuring detail in order to shine.

The outcome of the contest must be a truly superb knowledge harvest that the investment community can act on. Broad academic participation is essential in a third-party validation role (not to be confused with academic competitors).

Any stupid rule, such as a supposed ban on foreign participation, must be flexibly resolved or strongly protested (AWE is truly a global quest and ARPA-E, under its primary mission should hold merit higher than petty nationalism. The US notably hired Nazi rocket scientists and gives away billions to foreign agents to meet policy goals.).

Failure to meet these requirements amounts to failure to meet ARPA-E core mission and guidelines and failure of the AWE community to properly design a contest.

Hi Energybooth,

There are a handful of small airborne energy products available, with many more in the pipeline. The only reason that large-scale product is not available is prematurity. Critical path analysis suggests you may need only wait two or three years more for the earliest utility scale offerings (human-in-the-loop, low-complexity).There are numerous investment opportunties, some sixty or so commercial minded players exist. This is a high-risk investment field, but the potential rewards are vast.

You can make a direct investment in a start-up or invest in a more diversified way in pioneering funds like WOW (Italy), WOW America, Daidalos Fund, etc.. WOW America in particular is about to launch in NYC and Silicon Valley to invest in a very broad collection of leading AWE teams, and some highly favored angel equity is still available. Contact Noah Sapir (Cc:ed), the acting CEO, directly with your interest,

dave santos
KiteLab Group

Reinhart,

Hope you are well recovered from AWEC2011 duties. Now to catch up some loose technical ends-

A method to ease the rotating launch/land kiteplane problem is to swing a large (low-drag finned) ballast mass in a wide circle and launch the lightweight kiteplane from that. KiteLab did two small-scale experimental sessions of the idea and found it worked, but transition to wind-lift remained tricky. Filling the kiteplane or mass-container with water-ballast that is then dumped might be useful. Added mass allows the kiteplane to sweep in a far larger circle and reach a far higher altitude before finally unclipping and ending up tethered from the center. The mass element is then retracted and parked. Landing reverses the process for a potential soft-landing of even the largest rigid airframes. The whirling mass mechanism might also be part of a short stroke pumping cycle and also reverse-pump to maintain flight in calm. Contruction-crane arms are a partial COTS model for a balanced rotating base. Yes, massive whirling objects are scary ;^)

Also, please ask all those in you know active in modeling stable kite orbits to not forget to consider pilot-kite and looping-wing pairs with stable orbit dynamics that evolved empirically. They should see good performance in simulation and especially given allowance for increased reliability and reduced actuation burden. "Spider" trains on these principles may also show promise in simulation,

daveS

coolIP