Proposal Basics

The proposal is a combination of 5 technologies:

1- Digital Displacement™ hydraulic Motor/Pump:

www.artemisip.com

2- Free Piston version of Proe Afterburning Cycle:

http://www.proepowersystems.com

3- Pneumatic / Hydraulic Interface:

http://leiwww.epfl.ch/publications/lemofouet_rufer_eesat_05.pdf

4- Water/Algae Hydraulics

Additionally:

5- Algae Biofuels:

http://www.biofuel-systems.com/

In Short:

Wheel hydraulic DD motor/pumps ( & Dynamic Suspension) + Water/Algae Hydraulic (the same water with algae is used as hydraulic fluid). As water/algae is inert, hydraulic accumulators can use ambient air instead of nitrogen. Then accumulators can be changed for compressed air cylinders and a "Pneumatic – Hydraulic liquid pistons interface". This interface is ideal to be software controlled (valve control) for optimization. Water can be also used for thermal stability of the system.

To improve autonomy, as in any hybrid system, a fuel engine is added. But for simplicity a Proe Afterburning cycle is used. The Proe Engine is modified to eliminate the crankshaft. Pistons are substituted by water/algae pistons (of course, the same used for the pneumatic-hydraulic interface). All the control is done by software.

Fuels: any fuel can be used for the burner, even solid fuels (or dryed algae).

Cover the bus roof with an algae farm. The tank is filled in the morning with and mixture of salt water, algae and nutrients. The bus control water variables such as temperature, CO2 concentration, etc, and expose algae to sun while circulating (using waste energy and CO2). At night, the buses drain the reproduced algae containers (biomass) to be processed, repeating the process in the morning.

Advantages:

Hybrid hydraulic benefits are clear, the Proe Cycle is simple and easy to implement at very low cost. Water hydraulic is clean. To avoid water freeze, the system is always-on, the software keep water warn by burning fuel. (if bus is not circulating, energy can be used to compress air). Air expansion can be used for air conditioning.

A city with 6000 to 8000 buses, each with an approximate area of 50m2 have a total roof bus surface of 300,000m2. Algae in optimal conditions can produce 25 to 50 gr of biomas per m2 daily, that is more than 10 tons of biomas daily.

To save money, the system is controlled by a standard PC computer hardware with real time Linux, (in combination with embedded system only for very low level actions, but always coordinated by the central software). Of course the whole system have things that are almost standard in today buses , like GPS, and Internet (probably Wimax). Then the bus fleet can works as a cluster and coordinate themselves.

Buses systems will optimize parameters such as energy stored in CA cylinders based not just in internal bus parameters but also in route parameters like slope - hills and traffic (statistical or actual).