How do batteries work

Batteries are ever increasingly becoming a part of our everyday lives. As we move to more portable devices a portable energy source for such devices are ever increasingly becoming popular. So that brings up the question, how to batteries work?


There are many types of batteries but there are 4 main types of cells,  a wet cell, dry cell, molten salt, and reverse. Although each battery is different they all work in a similar fashion.

Firstly, electricity is a flow of electrons in a system or a circuit. The electrons are pushed by an electric field in a particular direction. In a battery in order for the electrons to flow, a chemical reaction occurs. A reaction which causes a release of electrical energy in known as an electrochemical reaction. The two terminals, once connected to each other, allow the electrons to flow between them. The positive end is known as the cathode and the negative end is known as the anode. These terminals are actually rods in the battery which are separated by an operator and the liquid or solid in the battery.

The solid or liquid which separates the two terminals is known as an electrolyte. This electrolyte is what produces the car. The chemical reaction occurring in the battery is known as a redox reaction where certain chemicals lose electrons while others gain. In a battery, it is the electrodes which undergo reactions to form ions. When an element has more or fewer electrons then it normally has, it forms what is known as an ion.

The cathode produces positively charge ions  (chemicals with fewer electrons the normal) and an electron.The anode produces the negative ions. Since like charges repeal, the electrons will flow around the circuit while the positive ions will flow to the anode. This is what causes the electricity to flow.

So this reaction is basically what happens. The battery brakes up chemicals to produce electrical energy. 

Tragedy strikes Tesla Motors

Engineering News

Tragedy strikes Tesla Motors

Tesla Motors, headed by it's visionary CEO Elon Musk, have transformed the motoring industry through their critically acclaimed Tesla Model S, a four-door electric sports car. The car combines performance and technology to provide a futuristic vehicle that might pose a threat to the Internal Combustion Engine, as the 90D version of the Model S has an impressive range of 294 miles (EPA). However, one of its most defining features and selling points was the Autopilot, which allowed for semi-autonomous driving.

Tesla could be regarded as pioneers to an ever-growing "autonomous driving" industry but Autopilot is not completely autonomous and still requires the full attention of the driver. It combines cruise control with lane departure assistance, which means that it can maintain a safe distance in "car lengths" from the car in front and also make a lane change. This could be done by manually activating the indicators. Through the use of cameras, sensors and radar, the car makes the necessary adjustments and completes the lane change. It is also highly reliant on the road's white dotted markings. The car also takes evasive actions when required, for example if somebody wanders onto your lane.

This revolutionary technology is not foolproof and Tesla never claimed it to be either. It was always marketed as a public beta. In fact, the feature is disabled by default. However, several owners performed viral stunts with the feature, such as speeding down the highway at 75 miles per hour hands-free. This raised massive safety concerns but must of these were unheeded until now, as tragedy struck 40-year old Joshua Brown on 7th May in Williston, Florida. He died after his Model S with Autopilot enabled, collided into a tractor trailer. The tractor driver, Frank Baressi, claimed that Brown was playing Harry Potter on the TV screen at the time of the accident.Tesla believe that the accident happened as neither the driver nor Autopilot noticed the white tractor trailer, which was why the brakes weren't applied. It was the first fatal crash for the company, and it occurred after 130 million miles. However, there is a fatality among all vehicles approximately every 60 million miles worldwide. Only time will tell if this was a rare incident or whether it is only the start of many more autonomous driving related accidents.

How does plane Wi-fi work

The airplane is one of the few places on the planet where you can have a proper reason to disconnect from the world for a while. But in the last few year multiple airlines have introduced wi-fi on services.This means that people can now connect to the entire world when they are 35,000 feet above the surface. But how does it actually work? Won't it interfere with communications?

Plane Wifi works like a normal mobile data network where, instead of a phone, the plane receives the signals. One compony, go-go air, uses the air to ground (ATG) method to send and receive information. This network is a cellular radio network that sends the signals up into the air instead of down to the ground unlike conventional mobile-data networks. The aircraft communicates with the network via an antenna installed on the underbelly of the fuselage. Equipment in the aircraft's avionics bay converts between proprietary Gogo protocols and standard Wi-Fi, which is distributed into the passenger cabin through multiple interior wireless access point nodes. For coverage over the sea, staalites are mainly used.The most current version of ATG, ATG 4, can give an internet speed of 3.1-9.8 Mbps for the entire plane. For this reason plane wi-fi is slow as the bandwidth must be distributed amongst all the users. 

9.8Mbps sounds slow, which is why  Go-go air has started to use a new system called Ground to Orbit. Go-go claimed that this system takes “the best aspects of existing satellite technologies with Gogo’s Air to Ground (ATG) cellular network” and that the “technology will use satellite for receive only (transmission to the plane) and Gogo’s Air to Ground network for the return link (transmission to the ground). The system can bring speeds as high as 60Mbps. Gogo Ground to Orbit uses a Ku-band satellite antenna for the downlink to the plane and Gogo's Air to Ground for uplink from the plane.But already this technology is moved forward in the form of 2Ku. 2Ku uses two Ku-band antennas, one for download and the other for upload. Gogo claims that 2Ku will have peak speeds of 70 Mbit/s

Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gogo_Inflight_Internet 

http://laughingsquid.com/gogo-announces-ground-to-orbit-60-mbps-in-flight-internet-service/