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I think we need energy and power because without energy and power we won't have electricity,tv's,cas, and etc. We have energy and power to help us with technology because without energy and power there will be no technology or phones, and tablets and electricity.

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By Rob Lewis
"I went on a diet and lost 15 horsepower." "I filled up my car's gas tank. It took 20 volts."
Most people would recognize these statements as nonsense. After all, it seems obvious that weight isn't measured in horsepower, and a quantity of liquid isn't measured in volts. In both cases, the speaker got the units of measure wrong.

While these mistakes may be absurd, in the field of energy generation and storage, similar errors are made all the time, and hardly anybody seems to notice. The core problem is confusion of two related, but different, physical quantities: energy and power. They're not the same thing! If you read and understand this article, you'll know more about the difference than a lot of reporters, and when you hear that a new wind farm will generate "250 megawatts per year," you'll know that something is wrong!

So what is energy, anyway?

While we all have a vague sense of what energy is, it helps to know the precise definition. Stated as simply as possible, energy is the capacity to do work. In physics, work is the act of exerting a force over a distance. Pushing a sofa across a room, or lifting your carry-on into a plane's overhead compartment are both work. (On the other hand, just standing there with your suitcase held over your head might tire you out, but it's technically not work because you're not actually moving the luggage.)

So we might say that energy is what makes it possible to push things around. The "thing" might be a car moving down a highway, a lump of bread dough on your kneading board, or an electron in the filament of a light bulb. Pushing these things around is work, and it takes energy to do it. If we know the strength of the force we need in order to move an object, and the distance we're going to move it, we can calculate the amount of energy we'll need.

There are several different units used to measure energy: joules, BTUs, newton-meters, and even calories. When we're talking about electrical energy, the most common unit is the watt-hour. One watt of electrical power, maintained for one hour, equals one watt-hour of energy. A thousand of these is a kilowatt-hour (kWh), and note that a thousand watts for one hour, or one watt for a thousand hours, both equal one kWh. They're the same amount of energy.

Working Faster = More Power

Did you see how I snuck the term "power" into that last paragraph? Here's the critical difference between it and energy: while energy measures the total quantity of work done, it doesn't say how fast you can get the work done. You could move a loaded semi-trailer across the country with a lawnmower engine if you didn't care how long it took. Other things being equal, the tiny engine would do the same amount of work as the truck's big one. And it would produce the same amount of energy and burn the same amount of fuel. But the bigger engine has more power, so it can get the job done faster. Power is defined as the rate of producing or consuming energy. Say this ten times: "Power and energy are not the same thing! Power is energy per unit of time."

The standard unit of electrical power is the watt, which is defined as a current of one ampere, pushed by a voltage of one volt. More simply, volts x amps = watts (there is a complication if we're talking about alternating current, but we'll ignore it for now). In the USA, the standard wall socket delivers 120 volts. If you plug in a light bulb and find that a current of ½ amp is flowing through it, you know that the power used by the bulb is (120) x (½), or 60 watts.

So much for power. How much energy is the bulb using? That depends on how long we leave it burning. A 60-watt bulb burning for one hour will consume 60 watt-hours of energy. Ten bulbs burning for ten hours would consume 10 x 60 x 10, or 6,000 watt-hours, which we can write more conveniently as 6 kWh. A thousand households all doing this would consume 6,000 kWh, which equals 6 megawatt-hours, or 6 MWh (since 1,000,000 watts = 1,000 kilowatts = 1 megawatt).

So the thing to remember about measurements of electrical energy is to always look for the "hours." It simply makes no sense to say that a power plant can generate so many "megawatts per year." What they probably mean is "megawatt-hours per year."

Well, wait a minute. Doesn't "megawatt-hours per year" fit our definition of power? It's energy (megawatt-hours) per unit of time (years). Exactly right! So instead of spelling out "megawatt-hours per year," wouldn't it be simpler to just rate the power plant in watts? Indeed it would. And since there are 8,766 hours in an average year, we can convert "MWh/year" into just "MW" by dividing by this number. This tells us that our hypothetical wind farm producing 250 MWh/year is generating power at an average rate of 250 ÷ 8766, or 0.0285 MW, which is the same as 28.5 kW.

Notice I said " average rate." When the wind's not blowing, the rate of production is of course zero kW. So in order to average 28.5 kW, the wind farm would have to produce considerably more than that some of the time. This leads to another important spec called "peak power output": the maximum that the wind turbines can produce under ideal conditions. For our 28.5 (average) kW plant, the peak output could be 50 kW or more.

Solar plants of course have similar considerations: zero output at night, and peak output typically at high noon in summertime. But if you average this out over a year, you get an average output rating in kilowatts or megawatts.

Energy Storage: Both Watts and Watt-Hours

Much of the discussion about clean energy concerns ways of storing it for those times when the wind isn't blowing or the sun isn't shining. Without effective storage, we're forced to rely on conventional power plants during these periods.

Energy storage usually means batteries, but there are other ways, like pumped hydro and molten salt. But whatever the technology, there are two performance parameters of interest:

1. How much total energy can the system store? (Think watt-hours)

2. How much power can it deliver at any moment? (Think watts)

The usefulness of a storage system depends on both of these quantities. A system that stored an enormous amount of energy wouldn't be very useful if it could only return that energy a few watts at a time. And a system powerful enough to light up a whole city wouldn't be good for much if its batteries died after a few minutes.

The moral of this story: storage systems have to be able to store enough energy to last through the "blackout" periods, and they have to be able to deliver that energy fast enough to meet the electrical load. Once you know both the energy storage capacity (say, in megawatt-hours) and the output power (say, megawatts), you can simply divide these numbers to find how long the backup power will last. For example, a 20 megawatt-hour storage facility delivering power at the rate of 2 megawatts will last for 20 ÷ 2, or 10 hours on a full charge.

Conclusion

It's common for people to use the words "power" and "energy" interchangeably. But now you know the difference: energy is the total amount of work done, and power is how fast you can do it. In other words, power is energy per unit of time. Power is watts. Energy is watt-hours.

Image: electricity, via Shutterstock

About the Author

Guest Contributor is many, many people. We publish a number of guest posts from experts in a large variety of fields. This is our contributor account for those special people. :D

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By Rob Lewis "I went on a diet and lost 15 horsepower." "I filled up my car's gas tank. It took 20 volts." Most people would recognize these statements as nonsense. After all, it seems obvious that weight isn't measured in horsepower, and a quantity of liquid isn't measured in volts.

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Medical technology help us when people are sick and they're also instruments like stethoscopes-to check your heartbeat, a thermometer- to check your temperature, an otoscopes-to check your nose and ears, ophthalmoscope-to check your eyes, and last but not least a sphygmomanometer- a blood pressure cuff to check your blood pressure.

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Agricultural technology helps us grow fresh foods and plants so when the farmers harvest the plants they can sell them to the stores so we have food to heat. Without the fresh grown food or if the farmers don't plant any food then we won't have any fresh food we'll just have man-made or genetically modified food made from technology and then we won't get all of our fresh nutrients that we need from fresh food instead of technology made food.

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We have transportation so we can move from place to place without transportation then we wouldn't be able to get to important places like meetings, school, and jobs. Transportation are like phones without phones then we wouldn't be able to call anybody important. There are different kinds of transportation like cars, buses, trains, and planes, also boats. Cars take us to simple places, trains take us to long distance places if we didn't have cars just like buses do but trains move faster then buses do, planes take us across the ocean if we want to go to other countries, and boats take us across the ocean but they carry different stuff across the ocean like cargo, cars, and sometimes people depending on what kind of boat it is.

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America on the Move explores the role of transportation in American history. Visit communities wrestling with the changes that new transportation networks brought. See cities change, suburbs expand, and farms and factories become part of regional, national, and international economies. Meet people as they travel for work and pleasure, and as they move to new homes.

Come along on a journey through America's past.

Americans Adopt the Auto

While the other sections of the exhibit investigate a certain period in a certain era, Americans Adopt the Auto examines how Americans across the country began to use the automobile from its inception in the late 19th century until the current 1990s. From the first drivers across muddy roads to solar-powered vehicles going down the highway, explore the way America adopted the automobile.

Learning Resources

America on the Move has a variety of learning resources availble for people visiting the museum, school groups interested in activities when visiting, of supplements for in-classroom learning.

About

This website is based on an exhibition that opened at the National Museum of American History in November 2003. Objects pictured here may differ from those currently on view at the museum.

America on the Move replaces exhibits of road and rail transportation and civil engineering installed when the National Museum of American History opened as the Museum of History and Technology in 1964. These early exhibits were, for the most part, displays of artifacts chosen for their technological interest. Their labels described technological change. They were mostly devoid of human stories.

We wanted our new exhibits to be just as popular. But we wanted to engage a wider audience, an audience that has come to expect more from museums than objects in cases. And our new exhibit had to reflect the Museum's new mission: American history. We would not do an exhibit about cars and trains, or even a transportation history exhibit. It would be an exhibit about transportation in American history.

Our exhibit would be about people and events. Who rode on the vehicles? What did they carry? Where did they go? How did they change the country? And why those things happened the way they did, and why it mattered, and still matters. We decided to examine four areas in which transportation shaped American history: communities, commerce, landscapes, and lives. And we focused on big themes of American history: urbanization and industrialization, immigration and migration, race relations, work and business.

Exhibits are complex enterprises. They combine many elements, serve many purposes, meet many needs. They can't be all things to all people, but they should allow most visitors to enjoy, engage, and learn. We hope America on the Move does that.

Enjoy the show!

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America on the Move explores the role of transportation in American history. Visit communities wrestling with the changes that new transportation networks brought. See cities change, suburbs expand, and farms and factories become part of regional, national, and international economies. Meet people as they travel for work and pleasure, and as they move to new homes.

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The transportation systems around which the modern world has been built are on the verge of a significant transformation. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are making driving and traffic management better and safer for everyone.

Transportation typifies the FutureStructure framework. ( FutureStructure is a sister publication of Governmet Technology.) Soft infrastructure - the realm of concepts, policies and legislation - is rapidly evolving to accommodate the demand for global investment in hard transportation infrastructure. Technology is bridging the two as vehicles and the infrastructure on which they operate become increasingly connected.

Traffic and population growth create demand for more transportation infrastructure, but many jurisdictions don't have sufficient money or space to build more roads and rail.

Despite cities lacking funds population growth will continue - the World Health Organization expects 7 out of 10 people on the planet will live in cities by mid-century. Coupled with climate change concerns, cities leaders must start rethinking the very nature of existing transportation systems.

New transportation technologies are emerging to meet these challenges, including connected and autonomous vehicles, alternative fuels, keyless fleet management and traffic analytics, as well as local zoning and planning policies that support transit-oriented development. New technology for on-road communications will dramatically change how vehicles operate and provide information and capabilities for better, real-time traffic management - if the necessary network infrastructure is in place.

ITS is poised to transform transportation into a connected, dynamic component of the city-as-a-system. Perhaps more importantly, the greater ease in moving about will have a positive impact on quality of life and commerce for residents, visitors and local businesses.

The Promise of ITS

"Cities are struggling with transportation today and will struggle even more in the future," said Bill Ford, Jr., executive chairman of the Ford Motor Company, while addressing the ITS World Congress in Detroit in September 2014. "We need to redefine what mobility is for the coming century."

According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, ITS improves transportation safety and mobility by integrating advanced, wireless communications technologies into transportation infrastructure and vehicles. The purpose of ITS is to process and share information that can prevent vehicle collisions, keep traffic moving and reduce environmental impacts.

Coordinating traffic signals, giving signal priority to transit lanes, electronic information signs and variable speed limit signs are all part of the burgeoning ITS industry. Also part of ITS is the ability to automatically distribute real-time traffic data to websites, social media feeds, mobile apps, and local TV and radio stations.

"Instead of a bunch of independent systems on the local, national or even global level, ITS creates a transportation network that works like the Internet, where everything is connected, but also open for standards-based communication, which reduces costs and creates value for everyone involved in managing traffic," said David Pickeral, who leads the Industry Smarter Solutions Team for Transportation at IBM.

Autonomous and Connected Vehicles

Perhaps the most anticipated element of ITS is the connected vehicle. The imminent arrival of connected vehicles is one reason for new visions of transportation within a metro area.

Connected technology focuses on wireless communication: vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V), vehicle-to-pedestrian (V2P) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I), collectively referred to as V2X. Intended primarily to improve safety, V2V technology allows cars to continually communicate to the vehicles around them so each are aware of the others' speed, heading and direction. Connected vehicles also help in recognizing and alerting drivers to dangerous situations. By adding communication points in hazardous road areas and intersections, V2I technology extends crash-reduction capabilities by allowing automatic control of signal timing, speed management, and operation of transit and commercial vehicles.

"The connected vehicle technologies are ready," said Suzanne Murtha, senior program manager for intelligent transportation initiatives at Atkins Global. "Now it's a matter of governments capturing and sharing data about real-time, on-the-street traffic conditions so drivers can make better choices."

A different but related technology is that of autonomous vehicles, perhaps the most famous example of which is the Google self-driving car. Autonomous cars use a combination of LIDAR (similar to sonar but with laser light), GPS, optical cameras and big-time processing power to analyze millions of possible roadway scenarios and then take the appropriate action. The ultimate goal for autonomous vehicle technology is to make the vehicle so intelligent that no driver input is needed. However, truly autonomous vehicles, wherein the driver can give up complete control to the car, remain on the distant horizon. According to Ford, it is incremental technological advancement that will one day lead to driverless cars.

"By the time we get to full autonomy, the last step won't seem like such a big deal," he said. "Even as we put in a lot of these features the driver still has to be vigilant and in control."

Malcolm Dougherty, director of the California Department of Transportation, agreed. At the ITS World Congress he said that while he believed "the development of autonomous vehicle technology is going to accelerate ... for the time being the motorist will always be responsible for the vehicle."

If you buy a new car today, you're getting a preview of how driving will change as we move into the era of autonomous, connected vehicles. Features that help you park the car in a tight spot, automatically adjust cruise control speeds and sound an alert when the car drifts out of its lane are examples of technology now offered by automakers. Several states have already passed laws that allow autonomous vehicles to operate on public roads.

In September, California approved three permits for Volkswagen, Mercedes and Google to start autonomous vehicle testing under Senate Bill 1298, which requires the state to adopt formal autonomous vehicle testing rules by 2015.

"When SB 1298 was working its way through, everyone thought that the technology was quite a number of years away - and we were all very surprised as we met with the car manufacturers and industry, about how far along the technology really is," California Department of Motor Vehicles CIO Bernard Soriano told FutureStructure's sister publication . "Getting a chance to see the technology up close and being able to experience it is mind-boggling. It's exciting to be working on this because we're on the cusp of societal change. I'm not one to use hyperbole, but this one is a game-changer. It will change the way we function as a society, for the better."

California State Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Pacoima), who introduced SB 1298 two years ago, shared in the excitement, saying in a statement that "this technology takes a bold step forward. Driverless vehicles will revolutionize transportation, reduce traffic accidents and save lives. Establishing safety standards for these vehicles is an essential step in that process."

Terry D. Bennett, senior industry program manager, civil engineering and planning at Autodesk, said while the autonomous vehicle concept is compelling, focusing on V2I and V2V makes more practical sense in cities.

"I think [autonomous cars] more than anything create a lot of space for people to think differently," he said. "But with Detroit and other cities looking at dedicated roads for vehicle-to-vehicle or vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, you're starting to see the point that having infrastructure that's intelligent, has sensors and can communicate, is a much better long term approach than trying to automate a single car."

Indeed, the U. S. Department of Transportation estimates that V2V technology may eliminate or reduce the impact of up to 80 percent of crashes involving unimpaired drivers. In a Governing Institute survey, 62 percent of local officials agreed that autonomous and connected vehicles will mean fewer crashes. Fifty-one percent also foresee improved mobility and reduced congestion as more intelligent vehicles take to the road.

Electric Vehicles

Oregon is gaining both environmental and economic development benefits from its infrastructure and program investments to support electric vehicles (EVs). The most visible of these investments is the West Coast Electric Highway, which includes charging stations along Interstate 5 in Oregon, Washington and eventually California. Based on positive public response, Oregon is installing EV charging stations along other key highways and encouraging private businesses to install stations as well.

Travel Oregon, the state's tourism office, runs a targeted EV tourism program, "Oregon Electric Byways," with suggested itineraries and a partnership with Enterprise Rent-a-Car for EV rental.

"It's hard to separate the infrastructure from economic development because the infrastructure starts the conversation about EVs, especially outside of major cities," said Ashley Horvat, Oregon's chief electric vehicle officer and the first person in the public sector to hold this role. "By placing charging stations around the state, we went into communities that had never seen EVs, which really increased adoption and created a positive perception for Oregon within the EV industry."

In September, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1275, which sets a goal for the state to put 1 million zero-emission vehicles on the road by 2023. The bill also authorizes the state to provide financial incentives for consumers to purchase such vehicles, part of the governor's effort to make electric cars affordable for lower-income workers.

"I'm excited that California is charging ahead with plans to have electric vehicles in every zip code across the state," the bill's author, California State Sen. Kevin De León (D-Los Angeles) said in a statement. "We're going to lead the way in the fight against climate change by putting a million EVs on the roads, which means making them affordable to all drivers, not just the wealthy."

Driving Data

Intelligent infrastructure generates data that helps civic leadership make better decisions. For local transportation managers, connected vehicles and connected infrastructure will be tools for traffic data collection and analytics.

Better traffic flow is achievable in part with better systems for collecting and analyzing real-time traffic data. In this arena, transportation managers can learn from the technologies and practices deployed by private companies, especially those with large fleets.

For instance, some keen-eyed observers know that the familiar brown UPS trucks rarely make a left turn. The reason is that for decades UPS has worked to optimize routes. The UPS On-Road Integrated Optimization Navigation (ORION) software, which provides analytics for routing the company's delivery trucks, is the latest in route optimization. The system combines daily data on package delivery commitments and historical route tracking to identify the optimal path (out of hundreds of thousands of possibilities) for each UPS driver to follow that day. UPS expects the ORION system to significantly reduce fuel consumption and miles driven in its trucks. Public transportation departments will benefit from using similar analytics tools said Tom Madrecki, strategic communications manager at UPS.

"It's really about diving into the data and, based on where people need to go, determining how to make the transportation system the best it can be, then investing in the needed technology to realize those improvements," Madrecki said.

ITS and the Path to Smart Cities

No matter how promising the new technology, local transportation officials are caught in a classic funding bind - it's impossible to reduce costs without making investments, but funding for infrastructure investments is scarce or nonexistent. In a recent Governing Institute survey, 78 percent of respondents indicated lack of funding was the key barrier to developing ITS, well ahead of the 45 percent who cited an aging infrastructure as the key barrier.

"We need to create a framework for private entrepreneurship to lead the way," argued Florida Department of Transportation Secretary Ananth Prasad during a panel at the ITS World Congress. "Legislation at the state and federal level needs to be loosened up."

In many cases, public-private partnerships will have a larger role in financing new transportation projects. "Many state and local governments don't have the staff and other resources to implement projects on this large scale," said Nicholas Fluehr, a managing director at Wells Fargo. "Although municipal bond financing is still a viable option, partnering with the private sector can be a good option from both a cost and efficiency standpoint."

As traffic volumes continue to grow in the coming decades, the public sector will need to consider every possible opportunity to better manage all transportation systems and infrastructure.

"For state and local governments, the question is which investments will allow them to more effectively and efficiently utilize the existing transportation infrastructure," said Murtha. "You can spend billions on new roads and light rail or you can make a much smaller investment in the communications technology that will allow more vehicles to operate intelligently on current streets and highways."

One of the recurring themes of the ITS World Congress was that we're on the cusp of an extraordinary revolution in transportation, one that may save government billions of dollars by facilitating far better utilization of existing transportation infrastructure.

"Investing in last century's infrastructure is cheaper in the short run but more costly in the long run," said Verizon Chairman and CEO Lowell C. McAdam in a keynote address at the ITS World Congress.

That's why the smart cities of the future will be those that embrace and integrate intelligent transportation systems. While driverless cars may be a long way off, vehicle connectivity is not.

"A smart, connected infrastructure will improve the quality of all our lives," McAdam said. "Job No.1 in achieving this potential is bringing connectivity to every car."
This story was originally published by FutureStructure.

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How Transportation Technologies Will Change Everything

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The transportation systems around which the modern world has been built are on the verge of a significant transformation. Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) are making driving and traffic management better and safer for everyone. Transportation typifies the FutureStructure framework. ( FutureStructure is a sister publication of Governmet Technology.)

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We write about the intersection of agriculture, tech and investment. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Agriculture technology is no longer a niche that no one's heard about. Agriculture has confirmed its place as an industry of interest for the venture capital community after investment in agtech broke records for the past three years in a row, reaching $4.6 billion in 2015.

For a long time, it wasn't a target sector for venture capitalists or entrepreneurs. Only a handful of funds served the market, largely focused on biotech opportunities. And until recently, entrepreneurs were also too focused on what Steve Case calls the "Second Wave" of innovation, -- web services, social media, and mobile technology -- to look at agriculture, the least digitized industry in the world, according to McKinsey & Co.

Michael Macrie, chief information officer at agriculture cooperative Land O' Lakes recently told Forbes that he counted only 20 agtech companies as recently as 2010.

But now, the opportunity to bring agriculture, a $7.8 trillion industry representing 10% of global GDP, into the modern age has caught the attention of a growing number of investors globally. In our 2015 annual report, we recorded 503 individual companies raising funding. This increasing interest in the sector coincides with a more general "Third Wave" in technological innovation, where all companies are internet-powered tech companies, and startups are challenging the biggest incumbent industries like hospitality, transport, and now agriculture.
Annual Agtech Financing 2010 - 2015
There is huge potential, and need, to help the ag industry find efficiencies, conserve valuable resources, meet global demands for protein, and ensure consumers have access to clean, safe, healthy food. In all this, technological innovation is inevitable.

It's a complex and diverse industry, however, with many subsectors for farmers, investors, and industry stakeholders to navigate. Entrepreneurs are innovating across agricultural disciplines, aiming to disrupt the beef, dairy, row crop, permanent crop, aquaculture, forestry, and fisheries sectors. Each discipline has a specific set of needs that will differ from the others.

Comment on this story Page 1 / 4 Continue

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The Next Phase For Agriculture Technology

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From gene editing to drones to farm management software, there's a lot of technology that's exciting to the public, but it's only in its first innings and iterations. Here are the hurdles that must be climbed to achieve the technological advancement needed in the world's least digitized industry.

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In various guises, information technology is taking over agriculture

ONE way to view farming is as a branch of matrix algebra. A farmer must constantly juggle a set of variables, such as the weather, his soil's moisture levels and nutrient content, competition to his crops from weeds, threats to their health from pests and diseases, and the costs of taking action to deal with these things. If he does the algebra correctly, or if it is done on his behalf, he will optimise his yield and maximise his profit.

The job of smart farming, then, is twofold. One is to measure the variables going into the matrix as accurately as is cost-effective. The other is to relieve the farmer of as much of the burden of processing the matrix as he is comfortable with ceding to a machine.

An early example of cost-effective precision in farming was the decision made in 2001 by John Deere, the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment, to fit its tractors and other mobile machines with global-positioning-system (GPS) sensors, so that they could be located to within a few centimetres anywhere on Earth. This made it possible to stop them either covering the same ground twice or missing out patches as they shuttled up and down fields, which had been a frequent problem. Dealing with this both reduced fuel bills (by as much as 40% in some cases) and improved the uniformity and effectiveness of things like fertiliser, herbicide and pesticide spraying.

Since then, other techniques have been added. High-density soil sampling, carried out every few years to track properties such as mineral content and porosity, can predict the fertility of different parts of a field. Accurate contour mapping helps indicate how water moves around. And detectors planted in the soil can monitor moisture levels at multiple depths. Some detectors are also able to indicate nutrient content and how it changes in response to the application of fertiliser.

All of this permits variable-rate seeding, meaning the density of plants grown can be tailored to local conditions. And that density itself is under precise control. John Deere's equipment can plant individual seeds to within an accuracy of 3cm. Moreover, when a crop is harvested, the rate at which grains or beans flow into the harvester's tank can be measured from moment to moment. That information, when combined with GPS data, creates a yield map that shows which bits of land were more or less productive-and thus how accurate the soil and sensor-based predictions were. This information can then be fed into the following season's planting pattern.

Farmers also gather information by flying planes over their land. Airborne instruments are able to measure the amount of plant cover and to distinguish between crops and weeds. Using a technique called multispectral analysis, which looks at how strongly plants absorb or reflect different wavelengths of sunlight, they can discover which crops are flourishing and which not.

Sensors attached to moving machinery can even take measurements on the run. For example, multispectral sensors mounted on a tractor's spraying booms can estimate the nitrogen needs of crops about to be sprayed, and adjust the dose accordingly. A modern farm, then, produces data aplenty. But they need interpreting, and for that, information technology is essential.

Platform tickets

Over the past few decades large corporations have grown up to supply the needs of commercial farming, especially in the Americas and Europe. Some are equipment-makers, such as John Deere. Others sell seeds or agricultural chemicals. These look like getting larger still. Dow and DuPont, two American giants, are planning to merge. Monsanto, another big American firm, is the subject of a takeover bid by Bayer, a German one. And Syngenta, a Swiss company, is being bid for by ChemChina, a Chinese one.

Business models are changing, too. These firms, no longer content merely to sell machinery, seed or chemicals, are all trying to develop matrix-crunching software platforms that will act as farm-management systems. These proprietary platforms will collect data from individual farms and process them in the cloud, allowing for the farm's history, the known behaviour of individual crops strains and the local weather forecast. They will then make recommendations to the farmer, perhaps pointing him towards some of the firm's other products.

But whereas making machinery, breeding new crops or manufacturing agrochemicals all have high barriers to entry, a data-based farm-management system can be put together by any businessman, even without a track record in agriculture. And many are having a go. For example, Trimble Navigation, based in Sunnyvale, at the southern end of Silicon Valley, reckons that as an established geographical-information company it is well placed to move into the smart-farming market, with a system called Connected Farms. It has bought in outside expertise in the shape of AGRI-TREND, a Canadian agricultural consultancy, which it acquired last year.

By contrast, Farmobile of Overland Park, Kansas, is a startup. It is aimed at those who value privacy, making a feature of not using clients' data to sell other products, as many farm-management systems do. Farmers Business Network, of Davenport, Iowa, uses almost the opposite model, acting as a co-operative data pool. Data in the pool are anonymised, but everyone who joins is encouraged to add to the pool, and in turn gets to share what is there. The idea is that all participants will benefit from better solutions to the matrix.

Some firms focus on market niches. iTK, based in Montpellier, France, for example, specialises in grapes and has built mathematical models that describe the behaviour of all the main varieties. It is now expanding into California.

Thanks to this proliferation of farm-management software, it is possible to put more and more data to good use if the sensors are available to provide them. And better, cheaper sensors, too, are on their way. Moisture sensors, for example, usually work by measuring either the conductivity or the capacitance of soil, but a firm called WaterBit, based in Santa Clara, California, is using a different technology which it says can do the job at a tenth of the price of the existing products. And a sensor sold by John Deere can spectroscopically measure the nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium composition of liquid manure as it is being sprayed, permitting the spray rate to be adjusted in real time. This gets round the problem that liquid manure, though a good fertiliser, is not standardised, so is more difficult than commercial fertiliser to apply in the right quantities.

Things are changing in the air, too. In a recapitulation of the early days of manned flight, the makers of unmanned agricultural drones are testing a wide range of designs to find out which is best suited to the task of flying multispectral cameras over farms. Some firms, such as Agribotix in Boulder, Colorado, prefer quadcopters, a four-rotored modern design that has become the industry standard for small drones, though it has limited range and endurance. A popular alternative, the AgDrone, built by HoneyComb of Wilsonville, Oregon, is a single-engine flying wing that looks as if it has escaped from a 1950s air show. Another, the Lancaster 5, from PrecisionHawk of Raleigh, North Carolina, vaguely resembles a scale model of the eponymous second-world-war bomber. And the offering by Delair-Tech, based in Toulouse, France, sports the long, narrow wings of a glider to keep it aloft for long periods.

Even an endurance drone, though, may be pushed to survey a large estate in one go. For a synoptic view of their holding, therefore, some farmers turn to satellites. Planet Labs, a firm in San Francisco, provides such a service using devices called CubeSats, measuring a few centimetres across. It keeps a fleet of about 30 of these in orbit, which it refreshes as old ones die by putting new ones into space, piggybacking on commercial launches. Thanks to modern optics, even a satellite this small can be fitted with a multispectral camera, though it has a resolution per pixel of only 3.5 metres (about ten feet). That is not bad from outer space, but not nearly as good as a drone's camera can manage.

Satellite coverage, though, has the advantage of being both broad and frequent, whereas a drone can offer only one or the other of these qualities. Planet Lab's constellation will be able to take a picture of a given bit of the Earth's surface at least once a week, so that areas in trouble can be identified quickly and a more detailed examination made.

The best solution is to integrate aerial and satellite coverage. That is what Mavrx, also based in San Francisco, is trying to do. Instead of drones, it has an Uber-like arrangement with about 100 light-aircraft pilots around America. Each of the firm's contracted planes has been fitted with a multispectral camera and stands ready to make specific sorties at Mavrx's request. Mavrx's cameras have a resolution of 20cm a pixel, meaning they can pretty much take in individual plants.

The firm has also outsourced its satellite photography. Its raw material is drawn from Landsat and other public satellite programmes. It also has access to these programmes' libraries, some of which go back 30 years. It can thus check the performance of a particular field over decades, calculate how much biomass that field has supported from year to year and correlate this with records of the field's yields in those years, showing how productive the plants there have been. Then, knowing the field's biomass in the current season, it can predict what the yield will be. Mavrx's method can be scaled up to cover entire regions and even countries, forecasting the size of the harvests before they are gathered. That is powerful financial and political information.

A truly automated, factory-like farm, however, would have to cut people out of the loop altogether. That means introducing robots on the ground as well as in the air, and there are plenty of hopeful agricultural-robot makers trying to do so.

At the University of Sydney, the Australian Centre for Field Robotics has developed RIPPA (Robot for Intelligent Perception and Precision Application), a four-wheeled, solar-powered device that identifies weeds in fields of vegetables and zaps them individually. At the moment it does this with precise, and precisely aimed, doses of herbicide. But it, or something similar, could instead use a beam of microwaves, or even a laser. That would allow the crops concerned to be recognised as "organic" by customers who disapprove of chemical treatments.

For the less fussy, Rowbot Systems of Minneapolis is developing a bot that can travel between rows of partly grown maize plants, allowing it to apply supplementary side dressings of fertiliser to the plants without crushing them. Indeed, it might be possible in future to match the dose to the plant in farms where individual plants' needs have been assessed by airborne multispectral cameras.

Robots are also of interest to growers of fruit and vegetables that are currently picked by hand. Fruit-picking is a time-consuming business which, even though the pickers are not well rewarded, would be a lot faster and cheaper if it were automated. And robot pickers are starting to appear.

The SW6010, made by AGROBOT, a Spanish firm, uses a camera to recognise strawberries and work out which are ripe for the plucking. Those that are have their stems severed by blades and are caught in baskets before being passed on by a conveyor belt for packing by a human operator sitting on the robot. In the Netherlands, researchers at Wageningen University are working on a robot harvester for larger produce such as peppers.

All these devices, and others like them, still exude a whiff of the Heath Robinson. But robotics is developing rapidly, and the control systems needed to run such machines are getting better and cheaper by the day. Some think that in a decade or so many farms in rich countries will be largely robot-operated.

Yet others wonder just how far farmers will let their farms be robotised. Self-guiding agricultural machinery such as that sold by John Deere is all but robotic already. It is like an airliner, in which the pilot usually has little to do between landing and take-off because computers do the work for him. Yet Deere has no plans to hand over complete control to the cloud, because that is not what its customers want.

Tunnel vision

If total control still seems some way off in outdoor farming, it is already close for crops grown in an entirely artificial environment. In a warren of tunnels beneath Clapham, in south London, Growing Underground is doing exactly what its name suggests. It is rearing around 20 types of salad plants, intended for sale to the chefs and sandwich shops of the city, in subterranean voids that began life as second-world-war bomb shelters.

In many ways, Growing Underground's farm resembles any other indoor hydroponic operation. But there is one big difference. A conventional greenhouse, with its glass or polycarbonate walls, is designed to admit as much sunlight as possible. Growing Underground specifically excludes it. Instead, illumination is provided by light-emitting diodes (LEDs). These, in the minimalist spirit of hydroponics, have had their spectra precisely tuned so that the light they emit is optimal for the plants' photosynthesis.

As you would expect, sensors watch everything-temperature, humidity, illumination-and send the data directly to Cambridge University's engineering department where they are crunched, along with information on the plants' growth, to work out the best regimes for future crops.

For now Steven Dring, Growing Underground's boss, is confining output to herbs and vegetables such as small lettuces and samphire that can be brought to harvestable size quickly. He has reduced the cycle for coriander from 21 to 14 days. But tests suggest that the system also works for other, chunkier crops. Carrots and radishes have already been successfully grown this way, though they may not command a sufficient premium to make their underground cultivation worthwhile. But pak choi, a Chinese vegetable popular with trendy urbanites who live in inner-London suburbs like Clapham, is also amenable. At the moment growing it takes five weeks from start to finish. Get that down to three, which Mr Dring thinks he can, and it would be profitable.

The firms that make the LEDs could also be on to a good thing. Mr Dring's come from Valoya, a Finnish firm. In Sweden, Heliospectra is in the same business. Philips, a Dutch electrical giant, has also joined in. In conventional greenhouses such lights are used to supplement the sun, but increasingly they do duty in windowless operations like Mr Dring's. Though unlike sunlight they do not come free, they are so efficient and long-lasting that their spectral advantages seem clinching (see chart).

This kind of farming does not have to take place underground. Operations like Mr Dring's are cropping up in buildings on the surface as well. Old meatpacking plants, factories and warehouses the world over are being turned into "vertical farms". Though they are never going to fill the whole world's bellies, they are more than a fad. Rather, they are a modern version of the market gardens that once flourished on the edge of cities -in places just like Clapham-before the land they occupied was swallowed by urban sprawl. And with their precise control of inputs, and thus outputs (see Brain scan, below), they also represent the ultimate in what farming could become.

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In various guises, information technology is taking over agriculture ONE way to view farming is as a branch of matrix algebra. A farmer must constantly juggle a set of variables, such as the weather, his soil's moisture levels and nutrient content, competition to his crops from weeds, threats to their health from pests and diseases, and the costs of taking action to deal with these things.

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Agriculture Technology | National Institute of Food and Agriculture

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Modern farms and agricultural operations work far differently than those a few decades ago, primarily because of advancements in technology, including sensors, devices, machines, and information technology. Today's agriculture routinely uses sophisticated technologies such as robots, temperature and moisture sensors, aerial images, and GPS technology.

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1) Virtual Reality

Once The New York Times gave out Google Cardboards with its newspapers, it was clear virtual reality was going mainstream. But now that Facebook's Oculus Rift just became available for pre-order, virtual reality is going to become a booming industry. With really sophisticated devices on the market, it might have its biggest year ever in 2016. It will be used to let medical students gain realistic experience in examining patients or to let patients see what would happen to them the next day at the hospital for stress release.

2) Augmented Reality

A Novartis chief announced that the digital contact lens patented by Google would become available in 2016. As it will measure blood glucose from tears, it is supposed to change diabetes treatment and management. Moreover, Hololens from Microsoft also comes out in 2016 which will have a huge impact on fields from medical education to architecture and engineering. It could help medical students do dissections for many hours a day from any angles without the formaldehyde smell.

3) Fibretronics

2015 was not the year of smartclothes no matter how much we anticipated it. Even the ones with the biggest market potentials like HexoSkin were only traditional shirts with built-in devices in their pockets. But fibretronics are clothing materials with microchips implanted into them. They can react to body temperature or the mood of the wearer, among others. Google has started collaborating with Levi's to create true fibretronic materials, which could be used to interact with technology through our clothes in novel ways. Imagine this in the OR. As the first promising collaborations in this area came out in 2015, expect to see the first tangible results in 2016!

4) Smart Algorithms Analyzing Wearable Data

2015 was the year of wearable health trackers. A swarm of devices became available, Amazon launched its Wearable Marketplace and millions of activity trackers were sold. But gaining actionable insights from the constant stream of wearable data is not easy. We need clever algorithms and apps that merge data from several devices and apps, and help us draw meaningful conclusions. It would help lay people put more emphasis on prevention and have a healthier lifestyle. I had experience with Exist.io, one of the earliest attempts, but it still needs to go a long way.

5) Near-Artificial Intelligence in Radiology

IBM's Watson supercomputer has been used in oncology to assist medical decision-making. It proved the clear benefits of such a system by making diagnoses and treatment cheaper and more efficient. IBM's Medical Sieve project aims to diagnose most lesions with a smart software, leaving room for radiologists to focus on the most important cases instead of checking hundreds of images every day.

6) Food Scanners

Food scanners like Scio and Tellspec have been in the spotlight since 2014, but as early developer prototypes have already been mailed to their first users in 2015, 2016 could be the year they become generally available. This would enable anyone to find out what's really on their plates, providing clear benefits not just to people looking to gain weight or eat healthier food, but people with dangerous allergies as well.

7) Humanoid Robots

One of the most promising companies developing robots is Boston Dynamics, acquired by Google in 2013. Since then, they only released teaser videos about animal-like robots and Petman, the humanoid robot. Many technologies they are working on seem to be at a stage where they are ready to become actual products, the first signs of which we'll see in 2016.

8) 3D Bioprinting

Organovo has been in the focus because of 3D printing biomaterials for years. They announced successfully bioprinted liver tissues in 2014 and they seemed to be 4-6 years away from printing liver parts for transplantation. But first, these bioprinted livers could be finally used in the pharmaceutical industry to replace animal models when analyzing the toxicity of new drugs. If it goes through in 2016, I feel printing actual liver tissue for transplantation could become a commercial service within the next decade.

9) Internet of Health Things At Home

Last year, I released a concept art of a bathroom of the future. All the elements in that image from the smart toothbrush to the digital mirror were partially available in 2015. But an array of sensors will reach the general public in 2016 making IoT a reality in our homes. The long-term goal is to make these devices communicate and learn from each other. This way we would not have to analyze the data of the devices ourselves, but the device manufacturers could merge their findings and share a digestible report with us when there is something to take care of.

10) Theranos - Thumbs Up Or Down

The end of 2015 saw Theranos embroiled in a scandal. The company claims to perform blood tests from one drop of blood in a transparently priced way. Concerns were raised by the Wall Street Journal about the validity of their claims, and we are waiting for Theranos to reveal the details of their medical technologies.

Besides these, the new branch of Alphabet and the Verily Life Sciences gene editing method CRISPR might have a big hit in 2016. We will see.

These medical technologies and trends will create value and have an impact on our lives and the practice of medicine in 2016.

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Top 10 New Medical Technologies of 2016 - The Medical Futurist

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Once The New York Times gave out Google Cardboards with its newspapers, it was clear virtual reality was going mainstream. But now that Facebook's Oculus Rift just became available for pre-order, virtual reality is going to become a booming industry. With really sophisticated devices on the market, it might have its biggest year ever in 2016.

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Against the backdrop of health care reform and a controversial medical device tax, medical technology companies are focusing more than ever on products that deliver cheaper, faster, more efficient patient care. They are also making inroads with U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulators to re-engineer the complex review and approval process for new medical devices.

Many in the industry have long felt overly burdened by what they consider to be an unnecessarily complex approval process. Critics claim it impedes innovation and delays the availability of better health care. To change that perception, the FDA last year announced a new Medical Device Innovation Consortium (MDIC) charged with simplifying the process of designing and testing new technologies. With input from industry, government, and other nonprofit organizations, public-private MDIC will prioritize the regulatory science needs of the medical device community and fund projects to streamline the process.

"By sharing and leveraging resources, MDIC may help industry to be better equipped to bring safe and effective medical devices to market more quickly and at a lower cost," says Jeffrey Shuren, M.D., J.D., director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health.

As the regulators, politicians, and corporate executives hash out these details, industry engineers and scientists continue to push through new ideas for improving and managing human health. Every year, industry observers like the Cleveland Clinic and the medical device trade press single out their favorite technology trends. These thought leaders agree that today's best technologies strike a balance between reducing the overall cost of medical care and increasing safety and survival rates-and isn't that what health care reform is all about?

Here are five emerging technologies to watch in the year ahead-and please visit AABME.org for up-to-the-minute developments on the field of bioengineering.

1. Cutting Back on Melanoma Biopsies

With the most deadly form of skin cancer, melanoma, a huge number of dangerous-looking moles are actually harmless, but has always been impossible to know for sure without an invasive surgical biopsy. Today dermatologists have new help in making the right call - a handheld tool approved by the FDA for multispectral analysis of tissue morphology. The MelaFind optical scanner is not for definitive diagnosis but rather to provide additional information a doctor can use in determining whether or not to order a biopsy. The goal is to reduce the number of patients left with unnecessary biopsy scars, with the added benefit of eliminating the cost of unnecessary procedures. The MelaFind technology (MELA Sciences, Irvington, NY) uses missile navigation technologies originally paid for the Department of Defense to optically scan the surface of a suspicious lesion at 10 electromagnetic wavelengths. The collected signals are processed using heavy-duty algorithms and matched against a registry of 10,000 digital images of melanoma and skin disease.

Also for you: 5 Innovative Medical Technologies for 2018

2. Electronic Aspirin

For people who suffer from migraines, cluster headaches, and other causes of chronic, excruciating head or facial pain, the "take two aspirins and call me in the morning" method is useless. Doctors have long associated the most severe, chronic forms of headache with the sphenopalatine ganglion (SPG), a facial nerve bundle, but haven't yet found a treatment that works on the SPG long-term. A technology under clinical investigation at Autonomic Technologies, Inc., (Redwood City, CA) is a patient-powered tool for blocking SPG signals at the first sign of a headache. The system involves the permanent implant of a small nerve stimulating device in the upper gum on the side of the head normally affected by headache. The lead tip of the implant connects with the SPG bundle, and when a patient senses the onset of a headache, he or she places a handheld remote controller on the cheek nearest the implant. The resulting signals stimulate the SPG nerves and block the pain-causing neurotransmitters.

3. Needle-Free Diabetes Care

Diabetes self-care is a pain-literally. It brings the constant need to draw blood for glucose testing, the need for daily insulin shots and the heightened risk of infection from all that poking. Continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps are today's best options for automating most of the complicated daily process of blood sugar management - but they don't completely remove the need for skin pricks and shots. But there's new skin in this game. Echo Therapeutics (Philadelphia, PA) is developing technologies that would replace the poke with a patch. The company is working on a transdermal biosensor that reads blood analytes through the skin without drawing blood. The technology involves a handheld electric-toothbrush-like device that removes just enough top-layer skin cells to put the patient's blood chemistry within signal range of a patch-borne biosensor. The sensor collects one reading per minute and sends the data wirelessly to a remote monitor, triggering audible alarms when levels go out of the patient's optimal range and tracking glucose levels over time.

4. Robotic Check-Ups

A pillar of health reform is improving access to the best health care for more people. Technology is a cost-effective and increasingly potent means to connect clinics in the vast and medically underserved rural regions of the United States with big city medical centers and their specialists. Telemedicine is well established as a tool for triage and assessment in emergencies, but new medical robots go one step further-they can now patrol hospital hallways on more routine rounds, checking on patients in different rooms and managing their individual charts and vital signs without direct human intervention. The RP-VITA Remote Presence Robot produced jointly by iRobot Corp. and InTouch Health is the first such autonomous navigation remote-presence robot to receive FDA clearance for hospital use. The device is a mobile cart with a two-way video screen and medical monitoring equipment, programmed to maneuver through the busy halls of a hospital.

5. A Valve Job with Heart

The Sapien transcatheter aortic valve is a life-saving alternative to open-heart surgery for patients who need new a new valve but can't endure the rigors of the operation. Manufactured by Edwards Life Sciences (Irvine, CA), the Sapien has been available in Europe for some time but is only now finding its first use in U.S. heart centers-where it is limited only to the frailest patients thus far. The Sapien valve is guided through the femoral artery by catheter from a small incision near the grown or rib cage. The valve material is made of bovine tissue attached to a stainless-steel stent, which is expanded by inflating a small balloon when correctly placed in the valve space. A simpler procedure that promises dramatically shorter hospitalizations is bound to have a positive effect on the cost of care.
Learn more about the latest innovations in bioengineering.
Thought leaders agree that today's best technologies strike a balance between reducing the overall cost of medical care and increasing safety and survival rates.

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Against the backdrop of health care reform and a controversial medical device tax, medical technology companies are focusing more than ever on products that deliver cheaper, faster, more efficient patient care. They are also making inroads with U.S. Food & Drug Administration regulators to re-engineer the complex review and approval process for new medical devices.

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Comparison chart

Energy

Power

Definition

Energy is the capacity to do work. Energy is power integrated over time.

Power is the rate at which work is done, or energy is transmitted.

Unit

joules = watt-seconds

watt = joules/second

Common symbol(s)

W

P

Example

I left a 60W light bulb on for 30 days, which raised my electric bill by 43.2 kWh (kilowatt-hours).

My car's battery can provide 500 amps at 12 volts, which equals 6kW of power.

Different Forms of Power and Energy

There are different forms of energy. These include kinetic, potential, thermal, gravitational, electromagnetic, sound, light and elastic. The form of energy is dependent on the frame of reference, and can be transformed into other forms. For instance potential energy is dependent on the position of the object, whereas kinetic energy is the energy required to accelerate an object to a particular speed, and so on.

Different forms of power could be electric power, which is the rate at which electrical energy is transferred by a circuit, human power, and optical power.

Transformation of Energy

Various devices can be used to convert one form of energy into another. For instance, a battery converts chemical to electric energy, chemical explosion converts chemical energy in to kinetic and thermal energy and so on. Power cannot be converted or transformed.

Measuring Energy vs. Power

Although it is not possible to directly measure energy, the work done can be defined and measured. The methods involves using a calorimeter, which measures the heat absorbed or released in chemical reactions or physical changes, thermometer, which measures temperature or bolometer that is employed to measure the intensity of radiation. Energy generated can be stored whereas power cannot.

Since power is energy per unit of time, in theory it can be calculated after measuring the energy used per second. When calculating the real power consumption of an electrical device, it is essential to measure the voltage applied and the current consumed, taking into account the power that is dissipated in the circuit.

Difference in Units

Energy is usually measured in Joules, the other units include ergs and calories. Power is measured in Watts, which is Joules per second, or ergs per second. Machine are usually described by its power rating, the higher the number the more powerful the machine.

Equation

Power is an energy per unit of time. As a rate of change of work done or the energy of a subsystem, power is:

where P is power, W is work and t is time.

References

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What's the difference between Energy and Power? In physics, energy is defined as the amount of work that can be performed by force, whereas power is defined as the rate at which work is performed. Contents 1 Different Forms of Power and Energy 2 Transformation of Energy 3 Measuring...

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Information and Communication technology are what help us communicate with people on the internet like facebook, twitter, youtube, skype that's called social media. Social media is what help connect us people together but sometimes it has it's bad things like cyberbullying and other people getting joked about their body and what they look like. Sometimes we need to just learn how to be nice on the internet or at least make friends on the internet other then real life friends.

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Information and Communication technology are what help us communicate with people on the internet like facebook, twitter, youtube, skype that's called social media. Social media is what help connect us people together but sometimes it has it's bad things like cyberbullying and other people getting joked about their body and what they look like. Sometimes we need to just learn how to be nice on the internet or at least make friends on the internet other then real life friends.

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Information Communication Technology | School of Information Science

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People all over the world are reaching out to share information through new and developing channels. The ICT program focuses on the intersection of technology, people who use that technology, policies and regulations that govern the use of that technology and communities or environments in which that technology is used.

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Short Description in Overview Page Metadata

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Stands for "Information and Communication Technologies." ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums.

In the past few decades, information and communication technologies have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities. For example, people can communicate in real-time with others in different countries using technologies such as instant messaging, voice over IP ( VoIP), and video-conferencing. Social networking websites like Facebook allow users from all over the world to remain in contact and communicate on a regular basis.

Modern information and communication technologies have created a "global village," in which people can communicate with others across the world as if they were living next door. For this reason, ICT is often studied in the context of how modern communication technologies affect society.

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Stands for "Information and Communication Technologies." ICT refers to technologies that provide access to information through telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums. In the past few decades, information and communication technologies have provided society with a vast array of new communication capabilities.

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Construction technology helps us build houses and apartments and condos. Without construction technology then we won't be able to have any shelter or a home to live in and we would have to live on the streets. But since we have architects and construction workers then we have homes.

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Construction technology helps us build houses and apartments and condos. Without construction technology then we won't be able to have any shelter or a home to live in and we would have to live on the streets. But since we have architects and construction workers then we have homes.

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New technologies are transforming all stages of the engineering and construction process. Here's what companies need to know about the evolving landscape.

The engineering and construction (E&C) industry is at the cusp of a new era, with technology start-ups creating new applications and tools that are changing how companies design, plan, and execute projects. By providing advanced software, construction-focused hardware, and analytics capabilities, these innovative start-ups are eliminating many of the problems that have dogged the E&C sector for decades, including difficulties compiling and sharing project information. Such improvements could not come at a better time, since construction projects are becoming increasingly complex and expensive, putting managers under greater pressure to improve costs, timelines, and efficiency.

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Many E&C companies have begun incorporating new construction technologies into their daily activities, but most of their efforts have focused on software tools for digital collaboration. The reasons for this narrow focus vary, but some players hesitate to expand into any other area because they have traditionally struggled to deploy new tools at scale, limiting their impact. The modest returns they've seen to date make these companies reluctant to explore additional productivity-enhancing technologies, especially those requiring substantial investment. Other companies are simply unfamiliar with tools and solutions in areas beyond digital collaboration.

To help E&C companies navigate the landscape and develop more effective deployment strategies, we analyzed more than 1,000 construction-software start-ups and their products. First we identified common use cases for which software tools are being developed across all project phases (design, preconstruction, construction, and operations and management). These include activities such as managing performance or monitoring safety. We then examined investment patterns to determine if solution providers are shifting their resources to different applications, since this could provide hints about tools that may soon hit the market.

This article focuses on current and future use cases related to the construction phase of projects because that is the most complex and time-consuming phase in the E&C process. As part of our analysis, we also reviewed data from McKinsey Global Institute's Construction Productivity Survey, which received responses from more than 200 senior E&C executives. The survey data helped us understand common challenges that arise when companies deploy and scale up digital solutions, as well as possible mitigation strategies.

The technological transformation at engineering and construction firms

Construction-technology firms have garnered $10 billion in investment funding from 2011 through early 2017. To gain a more detailed view of this strong market and its evolution, we first identified all tools and solutions that construction technology start-ups have developed. We then determined how each tool addressed or eliminated problems throughout the course of E&C projects-looking at both the phase in which they are used and the particular problem they solve (Exhibit 1).

Start-ups are most likely to develop tools and solutions for the construction phase, with about 1,000 companies offering products for it. There are 11 major use cases for this phase, including those related to enterprise-resource-planning systems, which are used throughout construction. By contrast, fewer than 200 companies created products for the design, preconstruction, or operations and management phases. When we looked at use cases for the construction phase more closely, we found that they fell into one of three clusters: on-site execution, digital collaboration, or back-office integration (Exhibit 2). We also found that many start-ups are simultaneously developing tools for multiple construction use cases in the same cluster. Only 13 percent are developing cross-cluster tools and solutions.
Exhibit 2
On-site execution

The first cluster contains use cases that relate to one of the most important aspects of construction: on-site execution. In this area, E&C companies typically encounter many difficulties, ranging from low productivity to delays in material shipments. Construction-technology start-ups have tried to mitigate some of the most pressing problems by developing tools and solutions that assist with the following activities:

Field productivity. Some new tools enhance field productivity by tracking crew deployment in real time, including the number of active working hours for each team member. For instance, some tools track employees by analyzing data from wearable GPS devices, while others ask workers to enter data about their activities, location, and hours into mobile devices. Other field-productivity applications help companies to manage project staffing across skilled trades or to monitor on-site productivity at the trade or worker level. With one tool, for instance, foremen can immediately retrieve data on actual project hours, budgeted hours, and remaining hours.

Safety monitoring. Other on-site tools involve safety-always a major concern for E&C companies. Many applications facilitate the tracking and reporting of safety incidents across job sites; others allow managers to distribute safety alerts and tips to the entire workforce.

Quality control. Some new applications help managers inspect remote sites by providing pictures and image tags, while others allow them to update and track their punch lists in real time. The use of GPS during projects, particularly those related to transportation, has already increased the accuracy of project specifications. This, in turn, increases efficiency and accuracy during on-site execution. In the future, leading E&C companies hope to create autonomous quality-control systems by combining new technologies and artificial intelligence with other tools, including GPS and building-information modeling (BIM). While most tools in the on-site execution cluster fall into these areas, construction start-ups have also developed products to assist with many other on-site activities, including supply-chain logistics.

Digital collaboration

E&C stakeholders-including architects, engineers, and foremen-are more numerous and widely dispersed than those in most other industries. They need to communicate and align frequently, since certain changes, such as a seemingly minor modification to a materials order, could significantly increase timelines or costs if made too late in the game. That explains why many construction-technology start-ups have focused on tools that promote digital collaboration-the online exchange of information-throughout all E&C project phases. Some of the most compelling tools relate to the following use cases:

Design management. E&C staff often need to update blueprints and other project documents while on site. Rather than returning to the office to complete such tasks, as these workers would have done previously, they can now make changes in the field. For instance, one mobile platform lets staff add markups, annotations, and hyperlinks to blueprints.

Contract management. These tools help staff with many critical tasks. For instance, workers can use them to update contract-compliance checklists or collect information about client and contractor communications that occur when contract terms are renegotiated.

Performance management. With these tools, managers can update and immediately share information (including workforce data) in the field, particularly during the crucial preconstruction and construction phases. Some performance dashboards can automatically import field data, simplifying the process of collecting information.

Document management. Many start-ups are creating tools that let E&C companies upload documents, track changes to them, and record all decisions made about their content. In some cases, document-management tools can also serve as a permanent repository, giving E&C firms easy access to past records.

Back-office integration

Back-office integration, involving functions such as accounting, finance, and human resources, can help companies to access and exploit valuable project data on finances, costs, and schedules. All too often, however, analysts fail to mine this information because it is not easily accessible. Start-ups have developed solutions-mostly designed from an accounting perspective-that give foremen and other staff members immediate access to real-time back-office data. Some tools, for instance, allow general contractors to see which change orders an E&C company's customers have approved, including those for which they have not provided payment. Many back-office use cases focus on scheduling, managing equipment, and enterprise resource planning.

Construction technologies that are gaining momentum

Where is innovation happening?

From 2011 through 2016, construction-technology players received the greatest amount of investment (from venture capital and other sources) for document-management use cases ($1.7 billion), followed by equipment management ($1.4 billion) and enterprise-resource-planning systems (Exhibit 3). But when we restricted our analysis to new companies-those founded over the past five years-we discovered that the most popular use cases involved performance management and field productivity, with 29 percent of companies developing tools for one or both of these areas. Only 8 percent were developing document-management tools, and few focused solely on this application.

Together, these trends indicate that venture and investment activity centers on field productivity and site-performance management-the two areas that McKinsey identified as needing the most improvement in our report Reinventing construction through a productivity revolution. Tools that help with these tasks could thus contribute substantially to the bottom line. For instance, global labor-productivity growth in construction has averaged about 1 percent annually over the past two decades, compared with 3 to 4 percent across other sectors. If E&C companies can close this gap-partly by using new tools and solutions-the industry's output would increase by $1.6 trillion per year.

Our investigation also revealed that companies are applying new hardware and software solutions to many use cases, sometimes by forming partnerships with large equipment manufacturers. Consider a few examples:

Predictive analytics. Every construction firm is a giant repository of data. Start-ups are now taking advantage of this information by creating new applications that can collect thousands to billions of records from all source systems. These solutions apply advanced analytics and machine learning to data-both structured and unstructured-to optimize decision making for multiple topics, including workloads, staffing levels, and strategies for minimizing inefficiencies.

What we're excited about

Two of the digital tools that could help reshape construction sites of the future

Project monitoring enabled by drones and the Internet of Things (IoT). Some start-ups are using these technologies to improve 5-D BIM-the process companies use to create digital representations of physical structures and then consider this information in combination with cost and scheduling data. Companies most frequently use drones to capture site images and aerial survey data, while the IoT primarily helps with monitoring equipment and preventive maintenance. Some companies have applied these technologies to new areas, however. For instance, Bechtel now uses drones for precision surveying, safety compliance, and other tasks.

Safety monitoring enabled by wearables and virtual- or augmented-reality tools. Many E&C companies are beginning to deploy these technologies to increase safety. For instance, Redpoint Positioning and Skanska use indoor GPS technology to mark hazard zones and activate safety warnings. In the future, we expect to see even more innovation. Virtual-reality safety walk-throughs, for example, may become the default solution for companies that want to assess potential hazards.

Strategies for deploying construction technology at E&C firms: The journey to a next-generation operating model

Although most E&C firms have already deployed construction-technology software tools for multiple use cases, many fail to obtain full value from them. Even when a company successfully pilots a new tool, large-scale adoption may be difficult or quickly lose steam. In other cases, technology initiatives fail to produce noticeable improvements in key performance metrics. Our review of data from McKinsey Global Institute's Construction Productivity Survey revealed that three factors may be responsible for these issues:

Insufficient commitment. Many E&C companies feel pressured to adopt digital solutions, especially if their competitors deploy them, because they want to demonstrate their commitment to innovation. But leaders often struggle to sustain their digital initiatives once they are past the excitement of the launch stage because their attention and resources are pulled in many different directions. That means companies often see lower than expected returns from their digital investments and thus have little incentive to keep funding them, especially if budget pressures increase.

Difficulties with company-wide rollout. As with any new technology, E&C companies generally evaluate construction tools in pilots, determining their impact and identifying any glitches before investing in large-scale programs. While these pilots typically proceed smoothly, companies often encounter obstacles during large-scale rollout because leaders ask employees to introduce new tools into work flows without explaining the benefits or providing sufficient training. On-site crews and foremen therefore consider the tools a headquarters-driven imposition that complicates their jobs. Frontline workers may have these misconceptions because E&C software programs have traditionally focused on improving back-office functions, not on-site productivity. In other cases, E&C companies struggle to move from the pilot phase to large-scale implementation because they do not invest in training field workers, especially general contractors and subcontractors.

Lack of compatibility with legacy systems. New technologies deliver the greatest value when they seamlessly integrate with existing enterprise systems. For example, field-data-collection applications that automatically connect to cost systems can provide real-time visibility into productivity, allowing managers to make immediate adjustments. Although some third-party providers can help E&C firms incorporate new tools into legacy systems, most do not provide complete solutions. In other words, companies must ask different providers to complete various parts of the integration process.

A few E&C players have already taken action to address these challenges. For instance, Bechtel established a firmwide process for testing new technologies, integrating new solutions into work flows, and generating more innovative ideas. Similarly, JCE invested in a software program and other assets to support tools that rely on the Internet of Things. These companies are the exception, however, since many E&C players simply introduce new digital tools without educating workers about their benefits or altering organizational structures. The lack of support may explain why technology efforts often score early gains but quickly lose momentum.

To get past these common challenges, companies should follow a next-generation operating model that incorporates the following elements:

A focus on the client journey. Rather than developing digital solutions for specific functions, such as back-office workers or front-line employees, companies should focus on optimizing the entire customer journey. They should also ensure their organizations are well equipped to provide customer support that aligns with how customers want to interact with the organization. This may require redesigning existing roles or creating new ones.

A full suite of digital levers. Companies will obtain the most value if they implement multiple digital levers in combination-for instance, a mix of digital tools, robotics, and advanced analytics.

A new management system. An embedded management system will ensure the sustainability of the new operating model. Incentives and digital-enabled transparency are critical tools to help managers accelerate the adoption of new technologies.

A cultural transformation. Cultural transformation and capability-building programs enable E&C companies to become more agile and quickly adapt to evolving client needs.

The prospect of building a next-generation operating model may seem daunting, especially for companies like E&C firms, which tend to encounter similar issues across multiple projects. Since such businesses often have established processes for dealing with perennial problems, they may have difficulty adopting more innovative solutions. To overcome these difficulties and create a successful next-generation operating model that incorporates digital elements, we suggest that companies take the following tactical steps (Exhibit 4).

Creating a focused digital strategy and organization

Rather than deploying numerous tools at once, companies should take a more reasoned and strategic approach to construction technology. We suggest that they first establish a performance baseline, benchmarking themselves against companies in relevant industries, segments, or projects to identify the most important areas for improvement-for instance, engineering activities, construction productivity, or indirect costs.

After the benchmarking exercise, companies should identify improvement levers by considering some basic but frequently overlooked issues, such as the bottom-line performance improvements they hope to achieve. They should also quantify the commercial benefit associated with each lever and prioritize those that deliver the greatest improvement. Finally, companies must consolidate their findings into an implementation plan with a realistic timeline to stay on track.

As companies deploy solutions, all functions must be involved, from the front line to top management. That means leaders will need to assess their organizations realistically, determining whether they have the capacity and skills needed to implement new tools. They must also incorporate digital solutions into their internal processes, since employees might otherwise stick with their familiar routines. Similarly, leaders must examine their current IT systems, determine whether new tools can be integrated smoothly, and make any necessary upgrades or changes before a program begins.

Throughout implementation, top managers must clearly demonstrate and emphasize their support for new initiatives. For instance, CEOs should ensure that specific teams and leaders are responsible for implementing the digital strategy, monitoring results, and ensuring that initiatives achieve scale and maintain momentum.

E&C companies with strong digital skills might have an advantage when implementing complex solutions across their organization. Other players might find digital initiatives more challenging and should consider implementing individual solutions in sequence, rather than undertaking a more comprehensive digital transformation.

Turning projects into test labs

The best E&C companies view every project as an opportunity to test and refine new digital solutions in partnership with clients and contractors. If frontline workers identify a problem in the field, for example, they should discuss possible digital solutions with E&C leadership and then pilot them during the project. To monitor results, project teams must establish key performance indicators and share them periodically with the leaders who oversee digital programs. If a tool produces lackluster results or fails to hit the mark, leaders should work with the team involved to identify and resolve problems while the pilot is still under way.

Later, leaders should publicize successful results, encourage widespread rollout, and advise other teams deploying the tools. These efforts will help overcome company-wide communication gaps and may generate enthusiasm among other staff. Some companies have appointed chief innovation officers or chief digital officers to lead these large-scale programs. In some cases, this is a new role. For instance, Atkins recently appointed its first chief digital officer to lead the development and integration of new and emerging technologies across the company. The appointment of chief innovation officers and chief digital officers should address one of the most important obstacles that executives noted in the McKinsey Construction Productivity Survey: a lack of internal processes to support innovation.

Letting data lead the way

Many of the best construction-technology tools incorporate data from both past and ongoing projects into their decision-making algorithms. As these tools become more prominent, E&C firms ensure that they incorporate analytics into their daily work flows by collecting targeted data sets and investing in the capabilities needed to glean insights from them. Since analytics solutions also require specific skills, such as those related to data science, E&C firms must expand their recruitment base to attract such employees, who are in short supply. Several major E&C players have already begun hiring chief digital officers and additional data scientists.

Reinventing construction through a productivity revolution Read the report

Increasing investment in digital solutions

Construction technology is advancing rapidly, compressing development schedules for new tools and significantly increasing their cost. Unless E&C firms back their commitment to innovation with a substantial investment, they are unlikely to stay on the cutting edge. Since every digital initiative carries some degree of financial risk, E&C companies should approach owners, developers, subcontractors, and technology providers, asking about partnerships or co-investment opportunities. Bechtel, for instance, recently entered into a partnership with the software company Rhumbix to improve its field-supervision platform for large construction projects.

To identify the best prospects, E&C companies should establish "listening posts" within the industry-a network of experts who can advise them about the most promising solutions. Finally, companies should consider mergers and acquisitions with technology partners to bring digital skills in-house, since this will give them a role in driving innovation.

Construction-technology start-ups have developed hundreds of tools for use cases across the project life cycle, ranging from design management to scheduling to safety monitoring. In the future, we'll see even more tools emerge, particularly for use cases related to field management and performance management. With the role of construction technology growing so rapidly, and new use cases emerging constantly, E&C companies that do not invest in the right tools risk being left behind.

The companies that place the right bets now will probably be the industry leaders in the next ten to 15 years if they match their greater investment in technology with a company-wide commitment to change. Above all, they will need to alter fundamental aspects of their organizational structure, corporate culture, and IT systems, with the goal of seamlessly integrating new tools into daily work. With this support, their new tools will give them an edge that no amount of human effort can replicate.

About the author(s)
Jose Luis Blanco is an associate partner in McKinsey's Philadelphia office, Andrew Mullin is a partner in the Toronto office, Kaustubh Pandya is a consultant in the San Francisco office, and Mukund Sridhar is a partner in the Singapore office.

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The new age of engineering and construction technology

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New technologies are transforming all stages of the engineering and construction process. Here's what companies need to know about the evolving landscape. The engineering and construction (E&C) industry is at the cusp of a new era, with technology start-ups creating new applications and tools that are changing how companies design, plan, and execute projects.