Technology Trending: smart homes, next-gen electronics, space data, moon base

Samsung’s smart home vision, new light on nano-level electrical circuitry, satellite observations for energy development in Africa and a proposed inflatable moon base are on this week’s technology radar.

Samsung eyes “ultimate sustainable home”

Samsung Electronics has set its sights on becoming the number 1 home energy efficiency brand with advanced energy saving technologies and appliances.

In an announcement at the IFA 2022 home appliance trade show the company revealed its vision to create “the ultimate sustainable home”, building on its SmartThings Home platform for connecting devices across the home.

“By leveraging efficient appliances with the synergistic features of SmartThings, we are planning to offer a truly sustainable home experience like never before,” promised JaeSeung Lee, Samsung Electronics President and Head of the Digital Appliances Business.

SmartThings Energy with AI Energy Mode enables reduced energy consumption by optimising the use of compatible appliances, e.g. adjusting the temperature of a refrigerator up or down based on the number of door openings.

Samsung has set the goal that by 2023, 100% of major appliances such as refrigerators, washing machines and residential air conditioners and heating systems will be Wi-Fi enabled and SmartThings integration capable.

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Targetting more powerful electronic devices

A breakthrough made by researchers at Queen’s University Belfast at the nanoscale is paving the way for a new generation of electronic circuitry that controls devices of all shapes and sizes.

The researchers have for the first time measured the electronic properties of a ‘domain wall’, a nanoscale two-dimensional sheet embedded in some crystalline materials. These domain walls are useful as nanoscale electrical connections but their potential lies in the fact they can also be created, destroyed and moved around as required.

This makes them very flexible and adaptable in comparison to current technologies and devices based on them would be completely reconfigurable, able to change their function entirely or even heal themselves if they broke down.

“Historically we have focussed on making electronic components smaller and smaller. We’ve now reached a point where we can’t go any smaller without affecting the reliability of the components,” says Conor McCluskey, one of the researchers.

“The next generation of devices will need to rely on materials which do something different, and mobile domain walls might offer us just that.”

Notably, the electrons that carry the electrical current within these domain walls move exceptionally fast at room temperature – similar to that of electrons in graphene, which has been hailed as a wonder material for its conduction properties.

Satellite data to catalyse energy investment in Africa

The Rockefeller Foundation has launched a collaboration to use satellite and other data along with AI to identify communities and locations in need of new energy and other infrastructures such as agriculture and transportation.

The three-year project will focus initially on Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria, with the aim to assist efforts to prioritise and sequence investments more effectively in what are key development sectors.

The initiative builds on the Rockefeller Foundation initiated e-GUIDE (Electricity Growth and Use In Developing Economies) initiative, which has used AI to predict electricity consumption in Africa and measure productive use of energy in the continent’s agriculture sector, while Atlas AI is a predictive analytics community identification platform.

“We want to develop tools to measure how infrastructural developments such as electricity systems, roads and agriculture lead to economic development,” said Jay Taneja, Assistant Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at UMass Amherst, and principal investigator on the project.

“We want to understand which combinations result in the most extensive and fastest economic development, primarily in countries in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Inflatable moon base

Plans have emerged in new work completed for the European Space Agency of a lunar base constructed out of prefabricated ultra-light inflatable structures for living, working and food and oxygen production.

According to the study from the Austrian inflatable cell specialist Pneumocell, the inflatable structures would need to be buried under a 4-5m thick layer of loosely packed lunar surface material to protect against radiation and the extreme temperature.

The challenge then is lighting and they would be illuminated with mirrors that rotate towards the sun to bring in visible light. Above each habitat a truss holding a mirror membrane would be erected. Sunlight from the mirror would be directed down through an artificial crater, from which another cone-shaped mirror reflects it into the surrounding greenhouse.

The tower is based on a circular magnetic rail and rotates to follow the direction of the sun light. In order to simulate night, the mirror is simply turned away for the required period.

Power would be provided via PV panels fixed to the rotating mirrors, with battery back-up for power delivery during the dark periods.

According to the company, which previously developed a scheme for a Mars habitat, its proposal is the lowest energy requirement option for construction and operation and the only one that provides a complete ecological cycle for self-sufficient production of food and oxygen.