You may never have heard of "Digital Displacement," a technology developed by a UK company called Artemis Intelligent Power. It's not a very sexy name. It is however, a very sexy technology. One that could be poised to very literally change the world.
Viewed from a distance, Artemis' Digital Displacement tech appears very simple. Essentially it just increases the efficiency of hydraulic engines with the help of a computer that can precisely control hydraulic pistons. In fact, it increases hydraulic engine efficiency so much that an engine armed with Digital Displacement can accomplish things that more traditional engines never could.
But let's step back for a just a minute. What are hydraulic engines? Hydraulic engines use the power of liquids to get their work done. A hydraulic fluid of some sort or another (often water, or mineral oil) is pressurized and pumped through tubes, and its movement through an engine moves cogs or gears. Here's a hilariously low-rent video (with MS Paint annotations!) that actually does a good job of illustrating how that works:
Hydraulics are very well-suited for certain uses, like powering heavy machinery, thanks to distinct advantages like being able to transmit power over long distances and through tiny tubes. That ability to weave power into complex series web of flexible pipes is what makes things like backhoes possible. Hydraulic machines also tend to be lighter and cheaper than electric motors with the same horsepower. There is a catch though; hydraulic transmissions traditionally have low efficiency, which can shoot hydraulic solutions in the foot when it comes to things like generating electricity in windmills. They can waste a large amount of the power they're creating, especially when the engine isn't running at full speed, as is often the case with a windmill.
That is where Digital Displacement comes in. Essentially, it merges a computer with a more traditional hydraulic engine and allows the engine to shut parts of itself off as needed. It's granular enough to disable certain pistons the instant before they fire, if they're not necessary at a particular moment. Specifically, if the engine isn't running at full load, Digital Displacement prevents unnecessary piston strokes from robbing the engine of energy, thereby increasing the efficiency of the whole engine.
Some of the engineers behind the tech explained it brilliantly in this video, filmed after Digital Displacement won an award from the Carbon Trust in 2009:
Here in 2015, Artemis has snapped up the UK's MacRobert Award, the UK's top engineering honor and one that has previously recognized things like the catalytic converter and the CT scanner (and to be fair, also the original Microsoft Kinect).
Dame Sue Ion , Chair of the MacRobert Award judging panel, described the tech this way:
The company has achieved a technical advance of global importance... This is not simply evolutionary improvement but a complete step change, and one that took years of commitment to achieve.
How will that "advance of global importance" manifest? A number of ways. Light and efficient hydraulic engines let windmills output amounts of power that traditional gearboxes could never handle without being unfeasibly large and bulky. The tech is already being put to use in 7 megawatt turbines off the coast of Glasgow and Fukushima, the world's largest floating wind turbines. You can bet there are more to come.
Artemis Intelligent Power
That combination of lightness and efficiency is also proving to be effective for improving the fuel efficiency of urban buses by nearly 30 percent, all while being way less cost-prohibitive than electric hybrid alternatives which have a huge upfront cost, and increase maintenance costs going forward.
The technology is still in the early phases of commercial application, but if past MacRobert Award winners are any indication of the future, Digital Displacement is headed toward more adoption. Last year's winner, an airport security liquid scanner, is already found at 65 airports across Europe. And with any luck, hyper-efficient hydraulic engines will find they way into hundreds, if not thousands, of offshore wind-driven power plants in the years to come.
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