Pictures of the Future Fall 2008
Short Takes
No Eavesdropping
Two encryption technologies developed by Siemens will soon make life difficult for product pirates and would-be eavesdroppers. The company’s new authorization procedure for RFID chips enables the authenticity of a chip attached to a product to be verified with a technique similar to the one used for digital signatures. The chip encodes a query from the reader device with its own private key. The receiver can verify the correctness of the answer to this query by means of the matching public key in a process that takes a mere tenth of a second. The technique thus makes unauthorized copying or chip alterations impossible. In the past, such procedures couldn’t be used with small RFID chips—but optimized algorithms and non-programmable switching components have now enabled Siemens experts to greatly reduce the computing power and expense of the procedure. Siemens has also made phone and data-line tapping physically impossible with a quantum cryptography chip for industrial applications that it developed as a prototype together with the Austrian Research Center and Graz University of Technology. The chip, which will replace a previously used key distribution system based on mathematical algorithms, uses photons to generate a random number sequence. The new system registers any attempt at tapping, as such activities initiate quantum physical processes that alter or destroy the photons. If such an attempt occurs, the system responds by generating a new key.
Maximum protection. Whereas forgery-proof RFID chips (left) are usually employed in situations where protection against imitations and copies is the main concern (e.g. with medications or automotive and industrial machine replacement parts), quantum cryptography chips (above) are ideal for companies that need secure communication channels to protect them from industrial espionage
Good-bye Gearbox
Low-maintenance wind turbines without gearboxes offer major benefits, especially on the high seas
In an effort to make offshore wind power facilities even more reliable, Siemens will soon be testing a new type of wind turbine that works without a gearbox. The main benefit of the new unit lies in its simplified design, which requires fewer machine components, and will therefore result in lower maintenance costs and a higher level of availability. This is especially important for offshore facilities, where turbine breakdowns are prohibitively expensive. Siemens Energy will test two gearless wind power facilities in Denmark. The facilities have a combined output of 3.6 MW. Siemens is conducting the research project, which will last two years, in order to determine in which performance class (if any) the units will be able to compete with conventional facilities. Gearless drive systems are generally heavier than conventional ones and also more expensive to produce. Wind turbine gearboxes transform the low rotation speeds of the rotor into the high speeds required to generate electricity. The gearless wind turbines, on the other hand, are equipped with synchronous generators that directly convert each rotor movement into electrical energy. These generators have torque of 2,500 kNm. By comparison, a powerful automobile electric drive has torque of less than 1 kNm.
Living Sensors
Cell sensors react like living organisms to toxins and pollutants
Siemens researchers are developing organic cell sensors for use as early warning systems to detect the presence of polluted water or air (see Sensors). The cells, which react to deviations in water or air quality with measurable alterations to their metabolism, live in a culture medium mounted on a silicon chip. The chip evaluates sensor data and forwards it to a process control system
Ships with Plugs
Germany’s first shore-based electrical power supply station for merchant ships entered service in the city of Lübeck in August 2008. The new facility enables ships to tap into the local grid for their electricity needs, rather than producing power themselves with pollutant-emitting diesel generators. At the heart of the Siemens solution is the Siplink system, which makes it possible for the first time to link ship and shore power networks, even if their frequencies differ.
Shore-based power connections reduce emissions, fuel costs, and noise
Luminescent Plastics
Researchers at Osram and Siemens Corporate Technology have developed white organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs) that boast a service life of more than 5,000 hours, while consuming less energy and achieving higher levels of brightness and robustness than ever before. The active layer of the OLEDs is less than half of a thousandth of a millimeter thick and is made of plastics that light up when an electric current flows through them. Laminar OLEDs, along with LED point-light sources, could revolutionize lighting, because they could be used to create illuminated wallpaper and tiles, empyreans, and transparent light sheets. OLED tiles from Osram have an efficiency of 46 lm/W, which is three times the efficiency of a light bulb. Osram researchers have also raised the bar for white LEDs, as their recently developed unit is only 1 mm² in area. But that’s not all—it also holds the world records for luminosity and efficiency.
New View of the Body
A new procedure developed by Björn Heismann has made it possible for the first time to depict body functions using a contrast medium and computer tomography (CT). Until now, such functions could be displayed only via complex and expensive nuclear-medicine procedures. Heismann’s research was based on the ability of advanced CT devices to quantitatively detect X-ray energy and evaluate the associated signals. When used with the Siemens Somatom Definition system, which has two X-ray sources and two detectors, the new procedure enables CT to generate sharp images of a very rapidly beating heart, for example, while at the same time lowering the patient’s exposure to radiation. Thus equipped, the Somatom Definition is also potentially able to generate two data sets from differing X-ray energy intensities. The contrast medium enables the user of the device to differentiate among the various tissues depicted, and then characterize and analyze them with algorithms developed by Heismann in order to identify the presence and nature of tumors or blocked blood vessels, for example.
Ceramic Bakery
Dr. Wolfgang Rossner is known as "The Lord of Ceramics" at Siemens Corporate Technology in Munich, where he supervises a Competence Center team that mixes ultrafine ceramic powder to create materials with new properties. The most innovative part of the research done here involves using atomic structures to create the new substances and then customizing the various material components in accordance with their planned applications. Such lab work can be a basis for innovative products, as Siemens experts demonstrated in the mid-1990s with the development of a special ceramic for X-ray detectors. The material has since become an indispensable part of many leading detectors. The ceramic materials can not only be found in extremely fast-working computer tomographs; they also enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of many other products, including everything from giant turbine blades to tiny light-emitting diodes.
