Category: Possible inventions

Formula1 drivers mostly claim that the so-called halo devices over their heads don’t interfere with their vision…since they are always looking so far ahead of the car.

I think it would be safer if they didn’t have to contend with the vertical strut right in the middle of their field of view, as well as the shoulder buttresses that keep them safe.

Today’s invention is to fit a system in the form of a camera (red) which feeds images to the inside of a driver’s visor (green).

The position and orientation of the helmet relative to the car could be detected using a small gyroscope fitted to the helmet (as is done in fighter jet pilot helmets).

This would allow an uninterrupted field of view and it would also enable a heads-up display to be superimposed on the projection on the inside of the visor.

Racing could continue on very wet days, using thermal imaging displays. The danger of suddenly driving through the Monaco tunnel would be removed.

I read today about how Seville oranges are useful for making marmalade. The shabby and amateur UK Govt’s brexit process has caused such delays that it may now be impossible to transport them in time.

So today’s invention is to mimic factory ships.

Just as these begin processing food in transit, we could have a fleet of large trucks, which when driving and parking for ages at some port, could be handling the various stages of food processing so that perishable goods would not be wasted.

Each truck could undertake a separate process for a given factory…eg chopping food up, boiling, pickling, jam making, refrigeration -whatever. They could drive in a convoy in order to help with the sterile transfer from one vehicle to another by air-to-air refuelling technology.

Today’s invention is a new form of non-lethal baton round (or rubber bullet).

Rounds are each supplied in a cannister with a near vacuum ahead of the bullet. The weapon makes a hole in the rear face of the cannister, so that air rushes in and propels the projectile towards the front of the cannister, piercing it on exit towards the target.

My calculations show that even if some energy is lost in breaking out of the cannister and due to subsequent air friction, a standard sized baton round, fired from a 1m long gun, can deliver bullet energy of about 100J.

This is about 1/3 of the energy of a standard round (making it much safer) but requiring no chemical propellant.

In order to ensure that the energy from the air pressure is not all wasted in breaking the cannister open, I can imagine a way to make it super resistant to external pressure, whilst easily broken from inside.

Today’s invention is a mobile fort.

In the middle is a green tank. This carries an outer, almost-circular wall, with a hollow interior and a chisel-pointed scoop at one point (red).

At a chosen location, the tank spins (anti-clockwise) around its vertical axis. This causes the chisel to scoop up a shallow trench of earth into the wall. Repeated circling part-fills the wall and embeds it into the ground. Further filling of the wall, manually or by bulldozer, would reinforce this barrier.

Thus a circular wall is created which can accommodate the tank as a gun emplacement. A wider gap in the wall would allow the tank to withdraw and the fort could be filled with field guns or troops.

A version of this might use the rotation of the tank’s turret only.

Trains use a system of points to move between tracks.

The points are usually fixed at a particular location.

Today’s invention is a set of mobile points which can be moved along a pair of parallel, standard spaced tracks, in order to allow trains to switch direction much more flexibly (so that a change of tracks or direction can be made at short notice, eg in response to an emergency).

This consists of pair of curved rails with a bogie at either end, at least one of which would be powered by a remote controlled electric motor.

There is an increasing overlap between eg Formula E drivers and online game racers.

Today’s invention aims to intensify that blurring for the benefit of both sports.

If you have a car that you like to drive on the street, just imagine being able to race it in a virtual world against drivers from everywhere.

So today’s invention takes the form of four pneumatic pads, something like the devices used as inflatable jackstands.

These would be rapidly inflated and deflated, beneath your vehicle and controlled by computer, in order to simulate the effects of racing dynamics on your car…braking, turning etc.

In addition, there would be a large screen placed outside your windscreen, showing the racetrack and other vehicles. The dynamics would be driven by the game software.

In this way, someone could sit in their own (parked) car and feel as if they were actually on-track against other competitors.

You could arrange for simulated performance upgrades to your vehicle as well as a suitably stirring soundtrack to be played through the window.

I noticed that, during the recent attempted putsch in Washington, various officers of the law had coloured tape attached to their handguns.

This was probably to help officers discriminate friend from foe (an amazingly small number of people were hurt, so maybe it worked).

Today’s invention is related to this and makes each gun firable by only one identified person.

A small camera unit sits on the rear of the weapon. This has a bar which extends between hammer and firing pin.

The camera takes both an image forwards and backwards when the trigger is lightly pressed. If the rearwards image matches the designated user of the gun, then the bar withdraws and the weapon can be fired. An image is taken too of the person being fired at, for evidence.

This system could be improved by having officers receive a pattern of eg UV dyespots applied to their face before a shift and having the camera grab a face image at the same time.

This has the additional benefit of ruling out the possibility of firing without aiming.

Today’s invention is computer-controlled local suspension units for a tank.

As the main gun fires, and the projectile moves down its barrel, the many suspension units would each be signalled to stiffen or relax in a wave-like pattern, in order to ensure that the gun stays on target during those crucial few milliseconds.

With a more advanced spring and damper setup, such as this, we could do away completely with recoil movement between gun and turret…the whole vehicle transferring recoil energy to the suspension, irrespective of the rotational position of the turret. This would free up a lot of space inside the turret,

This system might also sense the hardness or softness of the ground locally beneath the tracks in order to optimise these suspension stiffness settings from moment to moment.

People fitted with heart pacemakers are supposed to take care not to go near strong magnetic fields. Some phones may cause their internal device to malfunction.

Today’s invention is a small phone which is attached to one’s pacemaker. This would be well shielded by eg a ferrous sheet placed between the two devices before insertion inside one’s body.

Pacemakers currently issue their users with an alert, in the event of some arrhythmia, by eg buzzing, but this system would also send data to a cardiologist and perhaps call an ambulance to one’s current location.