New Aggie Bus uses electricity, costs less
On Thursday Nov. 15, USU unveiled the Aggie Bus, a bus that runs entirely on electric power, charges wirelessly using induction, costs less than regular diesel buses and doesn’t release any emissions.
Curt Roberts, who supervised the scientific team that developed the technology, said the innovations of the Aggie bus are a win from every dimension.
“You get the best of all worlds,” Roberts said. “You get zero tailpipe emissions, you spend less money and all of the noise and air pollution issues are completely gone in the environment where the bus operates.”
Roberts, the associate vice president of Commercialization and Regional Development, said USU has a team that focuses exclusively on the technology of wireless power transfer – moving large amounts of electricity from the electrical grid through the air into a vehicle battery.
“USU has one of the leading scientific teams in the entire world in this area of science,” he said. “We’ve achieved performance levels today on this bus that in combination have not been achieved by anyone else anywhere in the world.”
Roberts said the research led by USU in this area has the potential to change transportation internationally. In the not too distant future in large cities and in dense transit routes, especially where large amounts of people use public transit, buses like this will become the norm.
“You’ll no longer have to ride on a noisy, dirty diesel bus,” he said. “Instead it’ll be a quiet, clean electric bus that can run all day and never be plugged in.”
Robert said as a research university, both USU faculty and students have the opportunity to participate in ongoing research that often produces new inventions and technologies. He said the students who have worked on this will have their names on patent applications that permanently record the contribution they made to this technology. For USU faculty, it’s an opportunity to build a national and international reputation for inventiveness, he said.
“We will probably see coverage not just outside of Utah but all over the world because of what we’ve accomplished here,” Roberts said.
The leading scientist for the project is Hunter Wu, who USU recruited from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. Roberts said Wu studied under the most widely-known and well-respected wireless power transfer researcher in the world.
The Ph.D. scientists leading the team learned the disciplines used in this technology in the course of their training, Roberts said. The engineering and computer science graduate students on the team are now learning about these technologies exactly the same way their mentors did.
“The exciting thing about USU as a research university is that we never forget the students as part of that equation,” said USU President Stan Albrecht.
Many USU students have the opportunity to come and be a part of real applicable research, Albrecht said. Even undergraduates are working and contributing to projects where they are engaged in this kind of discovery.
“If I were a student out there and looked at the kinds of things coming out of USU that are as exciting as the Aggie Bus, this is the place I would want to be,” Albrecht said.
Roberts said students want to be part of an institution where researchers known as being among the most pioneering researchers in the world are the people guiding their learning.
“It just makes USU that much greater a place to come to school,” he said.
Professors want to know they can be part of an insitution that will support the very best in research, according to Roberts. He said having a team like this is just one example of the commitment the institution makes to ensure USU not only has the best researchers, but that the researchers have the best facilities, the best equipment and the best support possible to stretch the limits of their imagination and inventiveness.
“We had the vision to create a leading program,” he said. “We were serious about creating a technology system that would lead the world.”
An informational video at the unveiling explained how the wireless power transfer of the bus is accomplished through a pad mounted in the roadway and another mounted on the underside of the bus. The roadway pad creates an oscillating magnetic field. The bus pad then absorbs electromagnetic energy through a process called induction with 90 percent efficiency. This charges the bus whenever it makes a stop so the bus can run on electricity all day long and never be plugged in.
Normally, a bus with a battery this size can only run about 30-35 miles on a full charge and larger batteries add up quickly. With wireless charging capability, the bus can charge every time it stops to pick up passengers so the bus can operate effectively with a smaller, cost-effective battery. Roberts said though an electrically powered bus does cost more upfront, diesel fuel costs between $3.50 and $4.00 a gallon and the equivalent in electricity is about 40 cents in Utah.
“That cost difference adds up very quickly as these buses are in operation,” he said. “The small difference you pay to buy the bus quickly you end up saving from the cost in power. Over a 12 year life, even with one battery pack replacement and other normal maintenance for the bus, it is still quite a bit less expensive than a diesel, a compressed natural gas, or a hybrid.”
“One of the things we’re most pleased by is the fact that we’re not done,” Roberts said. “We are going to continue to push this research, to continue to transfer more power and to make this possible in more types of vehicles in more places around the world and that means more opportunity for our faculty and our researchers and our students to be part of that innovation.”
The Aggie Bus is just a prototype currently, used for development and testing, Roberts said. The first real buses implementing this technology won’t be in service until summer of 2013 and will be used on the U of U campus as shuttles.
– abhendrix@pentaracorp.com