1. Introduction
The electrification of mobility is ushering in a "Cambrian Explosion" – a period of rapid diversification and innovation that echoes the biological explosion of life on Earth 530 million years ago. Cybernetic Mobility X (CMX) lies at the heart of this transformation, promising to revolutionize not just transportation, but the very structure of industries and communities.
2. From a Centralized Steam Engine to Decentralized Motors: Lessons of the Industrial Revolution
The Second Industrial Revolution provides a powerful analogy. Steam engines, while revolutionary, were bulky and inflexible, forcing factories into inefficient layouts. The advent of electric motors made factories "multi-cellular." Motors were distributed throughout, powering individual machines and conveyor belts. This increased productivity and flexibility, laying the foundation for mass production.
2.1 CMX: Motors in the Wheels
CMX adopts a similar principle. Traditional vehicles have a single internal combustion engine – their "muscle cell." CMX incorporates motors directly into wheels, transforming vehicles into multi-cellular organisms. This offers unprecedented design freedom:
- Diverse Forms: CMX could take countless shapes: unicycles, motorcycles, crawlers, even flying vehicles – all adapted to specific tasks.
- Automated Operation: Advanced sensors, communication, and AI enable CMX to navigate complex environments and maintain safe distances.
- Orchestrated movement: "Orchestration technology" will allow CMX to work as "flocks," streamlining tasks and replacing human labor in industries like logistics, agriculture, and construction.
2.2 CMX as a Tool for a Changing World
A shrinking, aging population puts pressure on Japan's workforce. CMX offers solutions:
- Logistics Efficiency: CMX "trains" replace inefficient long-haul trucking. Goods travel on demand, with automated loading/unloading.
- Rural Mobility: CMX swarms adapt in size to match demand, replacing underutilized bus routes and providing door-to-door service.
- Agriculture Reimagined: Small CMX can tend fields, especially with on-site solar generation. Surplus power could support local food processing and logistics.
- Beyond Sleep: CMX computers, when not in motion, could lend processing power to public machine learning projects or blockchain applications. Batteries become a distributed grid resource.
3. Infrastructure for the CMX Revolution
Realizing this potential demands more than vehicles:
- Bidirectional Charging with Power Grids: CMX will charge and discharge energy back into the grid, helping meet peak demand and stabilize supply.
- Digital Backbone: Wireless networks and cloud computing are vital for CMX communication, coordination, and real-time adjustments to traffic, weather, and energy needs.
- Integrated Energy Systems: Locating data centers near substations allows for smart energy management and reduction of the transmission enhancement. CMX could utilize local solar and wind energy, while data centers use off-peak grid power.
3.1 The MESH Concept: A Roadmap for the Future
TEPCO Power Grid’s MESH concept offers a blueprint for a CMX-enabled society. By integrating energy, mobility, and digital tech, MESH could:
- Optimize Across Sectors: CMX linked to smart homes, businesses, and factories would allow for dynamic, community-wide energy optimization.
- Localize Renewables: CMX could become energy storage for homes/businesses, maximizing the value of distributed solar and wind power.
- The Resilient Grid: With vast numbers of CMX batteries, communities would be less vulnerable to outages and fluctuations in the national grid.
Figure 2. the MESH concept [2].
3.3 Fractal Nature of CMX and hierarchies of Power Grid
A CMX can be thought of as a machine that inputs energy and provides experience to its users; a CMX has a structure like a living creature with blood vessels, nerves, and muscles (actuators) inside it (Figure 1).
The CMX can not only stand-alone but can also work together with the entire region and the entire planet to form an even larger CMX. Like the branches of a tree, the same structure repeats itself from small CMXs to large CMXs. This is a common structure in nature called a "fractal".
CMX can increase industrial productivity and make our lives more convenient by utilizing the fractal structure linked to the region and the earth and the hierarchical structure of the power grid. The power grid is a network that supplies electricity from power plants to consumers such as households and factories and can be divided into three major layers as depicted in Figure 3.
By linking CMX and the power grid, the following can be realized.
- Optimization of energy supply and demand at customers' residences, stores, factories, farms, construction sites, etc.
- Predicting the amount of solar, wind, and other renewable energy generation in a region and effectively using it locally (local production for local consumption)
- Maintaining a nationwide supply-demand balance while taking transmission system congestion into account
- Preventing power outages by utilizing distributed batteries
Figure 3: Future supply, demand, and grid operations (Utility 3.0 implementation) [3].
4. Conclusions
The road to CMX includes technical, regulatory, and social challenges. Yet, as with the Cambrian Explosion, a burst of innovation can reshape an entire ecosystem. CMX could lead to new industries, resource-efficient communities, and a model of sustainable growth for a decarbonizing world.
More than just a means of transportation, CMX will simultaneously achieve revolutionary productivity gains through its diverse forms, fully automated operation, work by herds, and connection to the power grid, as well as optimize energy supply and demand, effectively utilize renewable energy generation, stabilize power transmission systems, and improve regional resilience.
If the MESH concept promoted by TEPCO Power Grid for CMX diffusion is realized, it will be possible to realize Society 5.0 ahead of the world in Japan, a country with declining and aging population. CMX will be the key to making the society of the future more prosperous and sustainable.
References
[1] MacAfee and Brynjolfsson, 'Machine, Platform, Crowd: Harnessing our digital future', W.W. Norton & Company, 2017
[2] Kataoka et al.: "Current status and future of supply-demand operation (energy management).-Toward the Realization of a Decarbonized Society", Journal of the Atomic Energy Society of Japan, 2024 (in Japanese)
[3] Hiroshi Okamoto, "The Cambrian Explosion of Mobility X", ELECTRA N°333 - April 2024