Abstract: A distributed compressed air storage system and method is described. A compression facility is configured to compress air and provides the compressed air to a pipeline. The pipeline is coupled to the compression facility and is configured to transport compressed air from the compression facility to a compressed air storage facility that is remote from the compression facility. A heat recovery unit is coupled to the compression facility and is configured to recover heat produced by compressing air in the compression facility. The compressed air storage facility is configured to store compressed air received from the pipeline and is located remote from the compression facility. An expansion facility is configured to receive compressed air from the compressed air storage facility and expand the compressed air to generate electricity.

Abstract: A distributed compressed air storage system and method is described. A compression facility is configured to compress air and provides the compressed air to a pipeline. The pipeline is coupled to the compression facility and is configured to transport compressed air from the compression facility to a compressed air storage facility that is remote from the compression facility. A heat recovery unit is coupled to the compression facility and is configured to recover heat produced by compressing air in the compression facility. The compressed air storage facility is configured to store compressed air received from the pipeline and is located remote from the compression facility. An expansion facility is configured to receive compressed air from the compressed air storage facility and expand the compressed air to generate electricity.

Abstract: A two-dimensional array of lateral-effect detectors (or position-sensing devices) is used to simultaneously measure multi-point centroidal locations at high speed. It is one of the primary components of a high-speed optical wavefront sensor design comprising a Shack-Hartmann-type lenslet array and associated analog circuitry including analog-to-digital (A/D) converters, and digital micro-processors. The detector array measures the centroidal location of each incident beam emerging from the lenslet array and calculates the local wavefront slope based on the beam deviations from their respective subaperture centers. The wavefront sensor is designed for high temporal bandwidth operation and is ideally suited for applications such as laser-beam propagation through boundary-layer turbulence, atmospheric turbulence, or imperfect optics. The wavefront sensor may be coupled with a deformable mirror as primary components of an adaptive optics system.