Bill Gates Patents Plasma Injector, for Your Car
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Bill Gates' vision is part of most home PCs, laptops, netbooks, and even cell phones with the Windows operating system. Now he wants to redesign how cars work.
Earlier today, a patent filed with the US Patent & Trademark Office was made available for public viewing, detailing an electromagnetic engine that could very well replace the traditional combustible engine, paving the way to energy efficient automobiles of the future. Among the ten inventors listed in the patent--as Searete LLC, part of Intellectual Ventures--is none other than Mr. Windows himself, William H. Gates, III, and Microsoft's former chief technology officer, Nathan Myhrvold. The group originally filed the patent back in October 2007.
As the patent states, the electromagnetic engine "converts mechanical energy of a piston to and from electrical energy during each piston cycle." However, the group also applied for two additional variants of the concept: free-piston and opposed-piston. While the free piston patent uses the same definition, the opposed piston electromagnetic engine is defined as an "engine [that] includes a cylinder having a two pistons slidably disposed therein, a port arranged to admit a reactant into the cylinder between the two pistons, and a converter operable with at least one piston to convert mechanical energy of the piston to electrical energy."
While the patent mentions a "reactant," that doesn't necessarily indicate fuel used today. The patent talks about a liquid reactant injector and a carburetor that would deliver the reactant mixture to the first port of the engine. Another interesting note was the patent's use of a "plasma injector," a terminology widely used in the Star Trek universe. This device--whether its in the form of a spark plug, catalyst, particle beam igniter (that's in there too), or the plasma injector-- is referred to as a reaction trigger, an electrical igniter configured to initiate a chemical reaction in a reactant disposed between the first piston and the closed end of the first cylinder; the reaction trigger is located at the top of the cylinder.
But how does this engine actually work? The electromagnetic engine apparently doesn't need alternating pistons, but rather a set of pistons fitted with electromagnets to speed up the recovery process. With magnets on both ends, the piston is pulled up and down the cylinder. Once the piston reaches the top and fires, it is immediately pulled back down into the cylinder by magnetic force, and then repeats the cycle. According to the patent, the pistons can use either electromagnets, permanent magnets, or a magnetically susceptible material such as an iron core. The energy generated from the reaction trigger could be stored in a battery, capacitor, or some other energy management system.
With that said, there's a good chance an automobile using this type of engine will run on electricity and utilize a rechargeable battery. If the engine is capable of storing energy as the patent suggests, the automobile may not even need an alternator. That may be incorrect of course, however, there's no mistaking that Bill Gates is once again trying to change how things work in everyday things: first with DOS, then Windows, and now with the electromagnetic combustion engine.
Source : Tom's Hardware US
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For some odd reason something that's combusting fuel designed by the same person who gave us our computing favorite past times (Blue Screens), isn't my idea of a reliable vehicle.. I think KIA just might buy into it!
An interesting news note, but I have to ask - what is up with these double titles that I've been seeing lately?
"Bill Gates has invaded most home PCs, laptops, netbooks, and even cell phones with the Windows operating system. Now he wants to redesign how cars work."
"Bill Gates' vision is part of most home PCs, laptops, netbooks, and even cell phones with the Windows operating system. Now he wants to redesign how cars work."
Year?? 2050
Car?? Ford XP~lorer
Suddenly stops working on the highway, requiring the driver to operate the key, gearshift, and windshield wipers all at once. For some reason, people accept this.
o_0 is it just me or is this less efficient than a normal car engine.... the coupling of a magnetic coil like he's using is FAR less efficient than spinning a normal generator or alternator. You might as well just use a normal engine to spin an alternator to power an electric motor..... which is less efficient than a hybrid. ANY time you have to convert the energy from one form to another you LOSE efficiency. This whole thing just looks like a bad idea to me.
HA!! Found it!
IF MICROSOFT BUILT CARS.....
1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.
2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on.
3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too.
4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT" Group Licence. But, then you would have to buy more seats..
5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was much more reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but would only run on 10 percent of the roads.
6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower.
7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light.
8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt.
9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off.
10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened.
11. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft (tm) Gas.
Once you add the Flux Capacitor, it'll all make sense.
@scotteq;
I can agree with you on everything but the Mac part. See I've owned Macs and PCs and they each have their own problems. My theory is the same one that applies to people that say airplanes are safer than cars. There are fewer airplanes than cars, and thus there are fewer airplane crashes. There are fewer Macs than PCs, and thus there are fewer reports of problems...
Ah the "If Microsoft built cars".... we need to update it from Windows9x era to Vista.
12. Before making certian exits off the freeway, the UAC will ask you to access or deny... twice.
13. Removing the Microsoft(tm) radio or other standard Microsoft(tm) equipment and replacing with aftermarket hardware will cause Microsoft(tm) Genuine Advantage to confirm your car is still Microsoft(tm) certified and will require re-activation from an authorized MSCE dealer. If upgrades are done at home, car will be non-functional after 3 miles, and you'll need to call geeksquad for towing.
(Hey, its a start)
@scotteq;
.
dude you forgot about the turbo(gaming,GPU)
o_0 is it just me or is this less efficient than a normal car engine.... the coupling of a magnetic coil like he's using is FAR less efficient than spinning a normal generator or alternator. You might as well just use a normal engine to spin an alternator to power an electric motor..... which is less efficient than a hybrid. ANY time you have to convert the energy from one form to another you LOSE efficiency. This whole thing just looks like a bad idea to me.
Maybe there is less friction involved in this concept engine
Given the basic drawing it does look crude. That being said, some are missing the simplicity of it. It has fewer parts and potentially less friction than a conventional engine spinning a generator. It's packaging appears to be a small foot print giving it an advantage on placement and configuration, i.e. multiple cylinders operating independently based on load could be more efficient than a crankshaft based motor. How well it works remains to be seen.
This would be a more efficient way of converting the chemical energy into electrical energy as compared to a typical hybrid system. Even a efficiency of 40% would be greater than the current way of doing things.
I thought Bill gates resigned as chairman of MS; does he still work there?
Didn't Xerox really invent windows? Well, at least they invented the GUI.
Hehe,Let's build a truck around that smart's engine! Then slowly upgrade it to a dual engine, or quadengine because a single engine isn't capable of dragging the weight!
Ow,and let's build a pool into the truck and take a microwave in it, together with a second generation fridge! (those bulky big ones, with an ice cube maker in).
You could later get the latest from the updateshop! Purchase aerodynamic wings for the truck to stay on the road, and buy a big gas tank.. yes, the one that's not available right now.. Let's wait another 3 years before mass production of those 500gallon tanks come out!
More double titles? Annoying, if benign, bug on your site these days.
But really, since when is Gates a mechanical engineer?
Didn't Xerox really invent windows? Well, at least they invented the GUI.
Tim Paterson wrote DOS, Xerox created GUIs and the basic mouse tech, Douglas Engelbart and later PARC created windows, Tim Berners-Lee and later Mosaic/Netscape created web browers.
But now, thanks to cutthroat (and brilliant) marketing and business practices (of questionable ethics), all we hear is: MS-DOS, MS Windows, Internet Explorer, etc.
Microsoft doesn't innovate, it acquires and integrates. But the end IS a fairly decent suite of products that really work fairly well, even if third-party software may outperform and be more feature rich.
Maybe when my check engine light comes on, I can go to update.powerwindowsandlocks.com and download a patch to fix the issue - without having to stop driving.
Ha.
Tim Paterson wrote DOS, Xerox created GUIs and the basic mouse tech, Douglas Engelbart and later PARC created windows, Tim Berners-Lee and later Mosaic/Netscape created web browers.But now, thanks to cutthroat (and brilliant) marketing and business practices (of questionable ethics), all we hear is: MS-DOS, MS Windows, Internet Explorer, etc.Microsoft doesn't innovate, it acquires and integrates. But the end IS a fairly decent suite of products that really work fairly well, even if third-party software may outperform and be more feature rich.
The start menu. Innovation in its own right, my friend.
That's just one example.
I'm just going to go ahead and say that I believe this was a very well-written article from some of your past, recent ones Kevin. There seemed to be none of that fluffy weird intro and conclusion stuff, and you explained the patent/technology very well.
In my opinion, Bill Gates has led an amazing life; he designs an operating system, runs a huge charity foundation, and is working to develop new technologies like this for our cars. Bravo.
Gates design does look inefficent on paper. How bout using a rotary engine like the RX-7 & use have 1 BIG magnetic reaction to generate lots of power. It would take a lot of power to start so you would most likely have to start it with gas or alchahol or have the magnet assembly move closer as it is started to generate more power.
Boy, you MS haters. I think that I can state with confidence that you intellectual imps are talking about a man with a brain the size of a planet.
Bill Gates is one of the most successful men in history. Without him you would be locked into an OS that works with only with one hardware product no choice. You would be cursing the name of Steve Jobs. Mind you without Bill Gates Steve Jobs would not even exist.
Current estimates of Steve Jobs' decision to lock his software up as a monopoly = $1 Trillion Dollars. I am sure he still mutters under his breath.
original?
prior art?
check:
http://www.faktuell.de/StelzerMotor/
14. It would take 10 minute to start and another ten for it to move...
HA!! Found it!IF MICROSOFT BUILT CARS..... 1. Every time they repainted the lines on the road you would have to buy a new car.2. Occasionally your car would die on the freeway for no reason, and you would just accept this, restart and drive on. 3. Occasionally, executing a maneuver would cause your car to stop and fail and you would have to re-install the engine. For some strange reason, you would accept this too. 4. You could only have one person in the car at a time, unless you bought "Car95" or "CarNT" Group Licence. But, then you would have to buy more seats.. 5. Macintosh would make a car that was powered by the sun, was much more reliable, five times as fast, twice as easy to drive - but would only run on 10 percent of the roads.6. The Macintosh car owners would get expensive Microsoft upgrades to their cars, which would make their cars run much slower. 7. The oil, gas and alternator warning lights would be replaced by a single "general car default" warning light. 8. New seats would force everyone to have the same size butt. 9. The airbag system would say "are you sure?" before going off. 10. If you were involved in a crash, you would have no idea what happened. 11. We'd all have to switch to Microsoft (tm) Gas.
lol!! that was hilarious...
so true though xDD
I thought he was retired
Wow, that dude is just too smart for the rest of the world!
RT
www.web-privacy.us.tc
Not a bad idea in its own right, but there are a few problems with the oversimplification of the internal combustion process. For one thing, part of the process is the compression of the fuel/air mixture. In diesel engines, the air is compressed in the cylinder as the fuel is added, which creates simultaneous detonation of all fuel particles present due to the relatively uniform compression which causes the mixture to heat to the ignition point. In regular Otto-cycle engines, the air and fuel are introduced at the same time, but a spark plug ignites a chain reaction of sorts, a more gradual explosion from the ignition point outwards. Both of these techniques require some of the mechanical energy of other cylinders to compress the air/fuel mixture to maximize the effects of combustion. I think this would make it very tricky to execute Gate's ideas consistently and in a broad spectrum of operating environments. In particular, the sequential nature of cylinders firing order helps keep consistent energy flowing and to keep the engine action going by re-investing some of the mechanical energy to optimize the next combustion. Although, this does make some sort of sense with how the Chevy Volt works, the engine is just a petrol-powered generator charging a battery to make the electric motors go. By cutting the inefficiencies of the mechanically-based Otto-cycle by replacing it with something that offers a more direct path from the harnessing of combustion energy as electricity to powering electric motors, we could finally see the advent of an internal combustion engine that breaks past the 20-some-odd% efficiency barrier currently faced. I'm glad I wasn't the first one to think of this general implementation when the idea first popped into my head three weeks ago–now it actually stands a chance of being produced!
As for "plasma injectors", I think they're just trying to cover as many bases as they can for the future–besides, you wouldn't believe how many crazy patents for engine modifications claim to turn petrol into a super-heated (but not yet ignited!) plasma before being injected into the combustion chamber. Plus, who knows what we'll be using as fuel in 50-100 years from now.
Oh, and the Macintosh car would nowadays allow operation in Windows compatibility mode for the remaining 90% of roads, but would require the purchase and co-installation of a Windows-powered motor and the disabling of most of the key features that make it a "better" car in the first place.
Seems to be a pattern here.
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Mr.Gates is quite a visionary... Oh, wait a minute! What is this?
http://www.lceproject.org/en/principle/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX3oAjnYZgc
quote from waffle911
"Both of these techniques require some of the mechanical energy of other cylinders to compress the air/fuel mixture to maximize the effects of combustion."
Not necessarily, a single cylinder engine doesn't have other cylinders to provide mechanical motion to compress the air/fuel mixture, it simply uses a fly wheel to store energy for the non-powered portion of the strokes.