Is the next generation of designers honing its skills on Minecraft?

If there were a record for the longest wait for a technology to take off (longest gestation period for a new technology), then virtual reality must surely be a top candidate for the honor. As long ago as 1990, the movie Total Recall gave mainstream audiences a dystopian view of the way life could be. The intervening three decades have cemented the image of the headset-wearing gamer in our minds – totally immersed in the experience yet oblivious to all around. And still it has failed to gain a large-scale following. Until now, perhaps.

With equipment sales currently rising at about 14% per annum according to research by IDC, all the big consumer technology brands are planning major new product launches in the coming months. Growth should accelerate to more than 30% in the next five years.

The IoT could finally permit RFID to reach its full potential.

A "solution waiting for a problem" is a label often affixed to technologies and inventions. It's perhaps one of the harshest judgements the world could pass, after all the time and care and emotional energy that gets poured into its creation. Yet it's a risk any developer must accept. Often, we cannot know for sure that our pet project will take off in any way – much less that it will achieve the incredible success we have seen in some cases over recent years: Google, cellphones, ARPANet....

Effective electrification could hold the keys to the future of air travel and air superiority.

Many feel our lives enriched by convenient and fast mobility. Our societies and economies have become dependent on the ability to get places quickly in planes, trains and automobiles, but easy mass access to air and road travel now appears at odds with the survival of the planet. We need a zero-emission solution if we are to continue enjoying its benefits, and electrification based on renewable energy appears to offer a way forward. Adoption of electric vehicles is accelerating while development of the internal combustion engine for private automobiles has all but stopped. But what are the prospects for electric aviation?

Switching to electric vehicles may save the planet, but there are challenges along the road.

The trend toward automotive electrification has established car makers and tier ones among the electronics industry’s biggest customers. We all continue to see a significant proportion of our activities and sales revenues associated with the drive for safer, cleaner, more reliable, and more entertaining vehicles.

Among the most interesting technologies is autonomous driving, which is bringing vast quantities of sensors on board – radar, lidar, infrared, camera modules – not to mention the signal processing and software needed to turn that data into real-time driving instructions. Then, of course, there is the transition to all-electric drivetrains, slated to become mandatory in several major markets by about 2030. With that, our takeover of the automobile will be complete!

Like many other consumer-electronic products, we can describe the generic EV drivetrain in a fairly straightforward block diagram: the battery and its management system (BMS), inverter, motor drive, and electric motor. Of course, nothing is as simple as it looks, and each of those blocks is an infinite source of technical minutiae to be understood, overcome, and perpetually re-engineered and re-optimized.

A key consideration is the powertrain operating voltage, which has important implications for us in the PCB industry. Increasing the voltage enhances energy efficiency and power delivery, and as some platforms are pushing toward 800V operation, we need PCBs that can handle this safely. It calls for a suitable comparative tracking index (CTI) to prevent arcing across the board surface that can cause component failures and fires.

High-CTI substrates were first formulated in the early days of domestic appliances, when substances – such as washing powder – were found to present a fire risk when they contaminated the board and arcing occurred. High CTI is also a requirement in applications such as electronic gasoline forecourt pumps for dusts or other substances that could promote arcing, leading to potentially problematic fires.

The CTI of ordinary, basic materials is under 100V, while so-called Level 3 materials can handle up to 175-250V. While today’s best materials can go up to about 600V, we’ve got work to do to raise the CTI for circuits operating at 800V and design and qualify suitable materials for future generations of EVs.

As I suggested earlier, the operating voltage is minutiae compared to some of the larger questions regarding sustainable mobility. Electricity lost the “battle of the fuels” to internal combustion a century ago. The situation is different now as today’s EVs are seen as the way to achieve a clean and sustainable future. But is this really accurate? As we work to build a future powered substantially by energy recovered from renewable sources such as wind and solar, the battery EVs we are driving today fit well with the vision. That green grid lies some way in the future, however, and moving rapidly to e-mobility is not so great for the planet today.

The technology needs customers in order to develop, and a cultural change must also take place. But EVs have some associated sustainability issues, particularly around the use of rare materials such as platinum, cobalt and lithium. Lithium battery technologies are by far the best we have. Right now, however, there is no satisfactory way to recover the metal from end-of-life batteries. An article in Nature suggests an average single car battery pack contains about 8kg of lithium and the world currently has enough reserves – about 21 million tons – to sustain conversion to EVs until the middle of this century.

What are the alternatives? Synthetic fuels could be an option. Biodiesels are already widely used in industrial applications, not only in road-going vehicles but also small boats and generators. Hydrogen and fuel-cell vehicles have for a long time been seen as an alternative to battery EVs and could make up a part of the e-mobility mix. However, the electricity needed to produce hydrogen by electrolysis is subject to the same caveats as electricity for recharging EVs: a cleaner grid based on renewable energy sources is needed before we can fully realize the environmental benefits.

One alternative could be nuclear. It’s free from carbon emissions as well as the geographical constraints on wind, solar and hydro power, although public perception is mixed. If that perception could be changed to recognize its track record as one of the very safest sources of electricity production, nuclear could produce more than enough energy to power the change to e-mobility; a sustainable way to produce hydrogen at low cost and recharge our lithium batteries.

Ultimately, no obviously problem-free way exists to get rapid, clean personal mobility in the style we have enjoyed since the first “motor cars” appeared nearly 140 years ago. Many technical challenges need to be overcome. But, we are technologists. Of course, we can do it. It may be expensive, however. While some predictions claim EVs will reach price parity with conventional combustion-engine vehicles by about the mid-2020s – due, in part, to the rapidly falling prices of lithium batteries – it has been calculated that the grid upgrades needed for them to become our preferred transport will cost $1,700 to $5,800 per vehicle. As Kermit the Frog said, “It’s not easy being green.” •

Alun Morgan is technology ambassador at Ventec International Group (ventec-group.com); alun.morgan@ventec-europe.com.