[CSL board] Fwd: [Msgs] Special CS Department Colloquium - Skytran Lecture

Fri Sep 14 15:42:17 EDT 2007

Hi guys,

You have been hosting my wiki http://www.skytran.org the past year.
Now the inventor of SkyTran is coming to UML.  His talk will mostly be
about technology -- he's a very innovative guy -- but I think the
social and environmental and even national security (less oil from
blood) benefits of this will be very significant, too.  (See the wiki
for that.)

Take care!
Howie

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Georges Grinstein <grinstein at cs.uml.edu>
Date: Sep 14, 2007 11:05 AM
Subject: [Msgs] Special CS Department Colloquium - Skytran Lecture
To: msgs at cs.uml.edu

UMass Lowell Special Computer Science Colloquium

Speaker: Doug Malewicki, President and Chief Scientist, AeroVisions Inc

Date & Time: Wednesday, September 19th, 2007, 1:00-2:00pm

Place: Olsen 311

NOTE: If you cannot attend this meeting, Doug will give a similar
presentation at 7:00 PM that evening at The Cambridge Innovation
Center in Kendall Square: 1 Broadway, 14th floor in Cambridge MA.

Title:  SkyTran: Go 100 MPH and Save the Earth

Learn about advanced transportation technology that dramatically reduces:

   - global warming and dependence on imported oil

   - traffic congestion and travel time

   - reliance on aging and unsafe infrastructure

   - overall transportation cost

-- while providing convenient 100-MPH personal transportation.

SkyTran is a "people Internet" of streamlined, 200-pound 2-passenger
vehicles automatically routed on a network of 1'-wide magnetic
levitation tracks 20-30' in the air.  State-of-the-art embedded
controllers monitor each vehicle's position with sub-millimeter
precision and deliver the minimum power required to keep it on track.
Passengers will climb stairs to "portal" stops where vehicles wait
like taxis; speak a destination and fasten their seat belt -- then the
system will do the rest, accelerating and merging onto the main track
and routing the vehicle to their destination while they work or relax.
Even at 100 miles per hour, SkyTran has power consumption equivalent
to 200 miles per gallon.  Eventually, solar panels above the tracks
could give SkyTran systems a double-zero (no net carbon emissions; no
net power grid input) environmental footprint.  Equally impressive:
unlike other public transportation, SkyTran systems can provide
economical transportation for all while earning a profit.

Earlier-generation systems such as the University of West Virginia at
Morgantown (60 million miles since the 1970's without a serious
accident) University of Trondheim in Norway and the Ultra PRT at
Heathrow Airport near London, have proven that  "Personal Rapid
Transit" systems can be reliable and safe.  With US Department of
Transportation funding, Doug's company Unimodal Systems expects to
demonstrate a functioning track and vehicles in the first quarter of
2008, and a 1000' test loop with offline portal by the end of the
year.  He is actively seeking university partners such as UMass Lowell
for the next stage of SkyTran development, a 2000' or 3000' loop that
they and we could use for research; then put into service transporting
students and faculty (for instance, to reach the new parking garage in
seconds from locations around North Campus), and eventually extend to
link campuses and other locations.

Read more at www.unimodal.com, www.skytran.net and www.skytran.org,
and see an ABC News report on Skytran at
http://www.unimodal.com/PlaySkytran.html.  Then, join us in Olsen 311
to hear inventor Doug Malewicki explain this "next big thing" in
transportation, and the research opportunities it offers today for
universities like UMass Lowell.

Speaker Bio

Doug Malewicki holds an Aeronautical & Astronautical Engineering MS
from Stanford University. He worked on the Apollo moon rockets and
aircraft including light aircraft and jets from Cessna, the Stealth
bomber and the unmanned Predator UAV.  He is President and Chief
Scientist of AeroVisions Inc., a company he founded in 1974 to
develop, promote and commercialize his numerous inventions.  In the
early 80's, he set official Guinness World records for achieving over
150 miles per gallon fuel efficiency runs at freeway speeds in gas and
diesel California Commuter cars
(http://www.canosoarus.com/03CalifCommuter/CalCom01.htm).  His current
focus is his super-aerodynamic, lightweight, high speed, low cost
SkyTran invention (http://www.skytran.net), an on-demand, personalized
magnetic-levitation transit system.   Doug is the subject of an
upcoming documentary entitled American Innovator (trailer at
http://www.3launch.com ).  For further information, see
www.skytran.net/Bio-Malewicki.htm and his invention website
http://www.canosoarus.com .

This colloquium is brought to you by the radical design group at UMass Lowell.

For more information, contact grinstein at cs dot uml dot edu or howie
dot goodell at gmail dot com

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