This blog features posts from and about the EngX community. Want to contribute? Read our blogging guide to help you get started.
Not what you normally expect to find on a fishing trip! Some debris from the Alphasat telecommunications satellite launch at the Kourou base in French Guiana was found in a remote part of the Amazon this week. For more information click here .
Members in the Satellite Systems & Appliactions My Community may be interested in the following three presentations filmed towards the end of 2013. Catching a Comet: The Rosetta Space Mission Professor Ian Wright Catching a Comet: The Rosetta Space Mission >> Play webcast >> more Robotics Challenges for Planetary Exploration Professor Ralph Cordey Developments in Space Robotics >> Play webcast >> more Space Robotics Research: Past, Present and Future Professor Yang Gao Developments in Space Robotics >> Play webcast >> more
Here are details of some activities coming up that may be of interest to you. Space Group lecture: The Future of Human Space Exploration 14 May 2014 RAeS HQ, London Click here to find out more. This lecture will be given by Dr Ellen Stofan, Chief Scientist and Jim Adams, Deputy Technologist at NASA. The Future of Weapon Systems Trials – A Case for European Collaboration? 20 May 2014 MOD Boscombe Down Click here to find out more. This conference looks to address the concern that Europe has insufficient capability to prove future Weapon Systems. Advanced Aero Concepts, Design and Operations Conference 22 – 24 July 2014 Bristol Click here to find out more.
Caked in red silt, NASA’s Curiosity rover looks like it’s been trekking through a Martian dust storm in this latest interactive panorama. But nothing can tarnish the joy of seeing this incredible machine hard at work on another planet. The dust-covered robot is currently preparing for its third drilling operation on Mars, at a site nicknamed the Kimberley. The rover will run this sample through a series of tests to give scientists a better understanding of the history of water in this area. For more details on the mission and some stunning images please click here .
Caked in red silt, NASA’s Curiosity rover looks like it’s been trekking through a Martian dust storm in this latest interactive panorama. But nothing can tarnish the joy of seeing this incredible machine hard at work on another planet. The dust-covered robot is currently preparing for its third drilling operation on Mars, at a site nicknamed the Kimberley. The rover will run this sample through a series of tests to give scientists a better understanding of the history of water in this area. For more details on the mission and some stunning images please click here .
Held in February 2014, the event attracted o ver 100 people attendees from a variety of sectors. You can see a short video on the event here - http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/APS/OpenLabs/127638.htm And read the write up on the event here - http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/NewsUpdate/viewarticle/1401/ Did you attend?
Experts help develop the first ever global mobile-connected smart city ranking Smart cities will use communication technologies including mobile networks to advance city life A recent report by BIS values smart cities industry at more than $400 billion globally by 2020 Article in full: http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/news/nr/university-experts-create-smart-cities-ranking-1.371415 Have you played a part in this work?
The 12th SCCB conference is taking place at Staffordshire University in Stoke on Trent 2-3 May. Please see a full press release below: New research could prevent foot amputations among diabetic patients. Four out of five foot amputations among diabetic patients could be prevented according to scientists at Staffordshire University. This follows ground-breaking research by the Biomechanics Team at Staffordshire University which has identified the likely cause of foot ulceration among people with type 2 diabetes which in extreme cases can lead to amputation. Led by Professor of Biomechanics, Nachiappan Chockalingam, the team has discovered a correlation between blood sugar levels and stiffness of the heel pad. Stiffer heel pads limit the tissues' ability to evenly distribute loads which in turn…
On 7 April 2014, the IET Bristol Local Network held a joint event with the Safety Community. Ron Pierce, the current Chairman of the Community Steering Group, gave a presentation titled Functional Safety Made Easy . His talk introduced some of the concepts and general principals of managing functional safety in critical systems, including some of the insights he has gathered through working as the nominated UK expert on MT61508-3, the standards committee responsible for maintaining IEC 61508 Part 3. The presentation, liberally illustrated with anecdotes from Ron's career in software engineering, went down well with the audience and inspired a lively Q&A session! Slides from the talk are available in the Bristol Network's Files Area on MyCommunity. Volunteers from the Safety Community Steering…
On 7 April, we held a joint event with the IET Safety Community. Ron Pierce, the Community chairman, gave an interesting presentation introducing the key concepts of functional safety, illustrated with anecdotes from his career working with critical systems. As one of standardisation committee members responsible for Part 3 of IEC 61508, explain how some of the issues are tackled by the international standard for functional safety of programmeable safety-critical systems. If you missed the presentation or want a recap, you can download the slides from our Files area . You can join the IET Safety Community on MyCommunity at http://www.theiet.org/safety
In an effort to bridge a gap between academia and industry and explore educational aspects of control and automation recent paradigms, IET Control and Automation Network TPN, and in collaboration between Bahrain IET LN and College of Engineering at University of Bahrain, a successful one day symposium-colloquium on Control & Automation Education was organized on March the 5 th 2014 at University of Bahrain. The event has successfully scheduled a total (11) dedicated talks, and lasted from 8:00 am to 17:00 pm. The attendance has reached ( 90), though the total registered was exceeding 110. The event was supported by a number of automation enterprises operating in the Gulf Region, like Siemens, iComply, Johnson Controls, MHS Technologies. The event was also supported by Ramada Hotel and Everest…
At the end of November 2013, the Control & Automation Network of the IET and the France Network hosted an evening lecture on the “Psychology of Autonomous Vehicles” in the French capital, presented by a young scientist from the Transport Research Laboratory (UK), Dr. Nick Reed, expert on Human Factors for vehicle navigation. The lecture was very well-attended by a mixture of IET members and engineers, medical doctors and specialists from the French Automotive industry. Nick provided the background of the shift on vehicle control from the driver to the vehicle on board computers, with ongoing projects at most Vehicle OEMs and suppliers. Whilst robotic cars are not new, the technology is available; the demonstration by Google in 2010 has attracted the interest of industry and public. Nick highlighted…
Have you checked out the IET Future Intelligent Cities conference website? Add 4 and 5 December 2014 to your diary! http://conferences.theiet.org/future-cities/ 'This exciting multi-stream conference will provide a platform to promote the technology behind recent and future developments as well as the critical system integration between industry sectors to create that ‘system of systems’ necessary to achieve thriving, sustainable cities with an improved quality of life.'
The IET provides guidance and support to enable members to undertake planned and structured professional development throughout their professional life. IET members have a professional obligation to undertake professional development as detailed in the IET’s Rules of Conduct and professionally registered members (CEng, IEng, EngTech and ICTTech) must also follow the Engineering Council’s CPD Code . The IET refer to two different aspects of professional development, Initial Professional Development (IPD) and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) but it can sometimes be difficult to define these terms. Initial Professional Development (IPD) refers to the development and practical application of the knowledge, skills and behaviour required for professional registration. Professional registration…
Latest posts on 'A Volunteer in Godzone' by Karla Smith, Chair of the IET Christchurch Network A Volunteer in Godzone
Control & Automation – it’s a pretty wide-ranging subject! But I believe there are core skills and interests that are likely to be common to pretty much everybody in the business. My own field, for the last 20 years or so, is C&I in midstream Oil, Gas & Petrochem, but I’ve been in or touched on enough other businesses to know that this is nothing like the whole story. Our newsletter, we hope, will alert you to events that you might otherwise have missed, perhaps highlight some trends and hot topics that you haven’t got around to looking at yet; and maybe sometimes just interest and amuse you. If it’s going to work, we need a two-way street: we’ll need to know who you are, what you like and dislike, what you found interesting, anything you think might be interesting, especially if you’re willing…
Two streets with 30 times slower download speeds than UK average have been named the slowest broadband locations in the country. Those living on Erw Fawr in Henryd, Wales, and Wheatley Road in Stanford-Le-Hope, Essex, can only download 0.6 megabits of data per second, according to a report carried out by online comparison site uSwitch.com. Erw Fawr and Wheatley Road’s connections are 96 times slower than Loundes Road in Unstone, Derbyshire, which came the first in the comparison. That means that while inhabitants of the two slowest streets would have to wait more than 15 hours to download an HD-quality movie, those on Loundes Road, the fastest, could download the same movie in less than 10 minutes. Read the full article on the E&T website
The IET Hellas, IET Cyprus and IET Israel networks are organising the upcoming MedPower 2014 Conference: The 9th Mediterranean conference on Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution and Energy conversion. The Conference will focus on topics of interest to the Electric Power Industry. It intends to address the vast technological changes in all areas of the electric energy business, products, equipment, methods, and so on. MedPower 2014 will provide power engineers and technicians opportunities to be updated on current academic and industry developments, achievements and trends through presentations and open discussions. Presentations will emphasise the regional needs and peculiarities of environmental aspects associated with electric power generation, transmission, energy conversion systems…
The Hellas network are pleased to announce that they will be holding a Present Around the World competition in Athens, Greece. Come along and support the next generation of engineers. You, the audience, will have the opportunity to watch a wide variety of interesting and cutting-edge presentations from the next generation of engineers. You will also be able to ask questions, with the winner being announced at the end of the evening. Date: Wednesday 21 May 2014 Time: 18:00 - 21:00 Venue: TEI Piraeus, Lecture Room ZB111
All in IET Kent congratulate Team Invicta (Emma, Oli and Carlos) on their fantastic achievement of becoming World Champions at the First Lego League World Festival held in St Louis Missouri on 26th April 2014. A brilliant result.
Restart has 187 ‘restarters’ ranging from teachers to those in the tech industry to security guards signed up to help fix things, with a core group of about 10 in London who regularly attend events. They come from all ethnicities, education levels and backgrounds but the majority are men. The charity has only two female restarters, but it hopes to encourage more to sign up after the first women-only event that took place earlier this month. For more information...
The Thameslink will increase capacity for routes into London from the North and South. This will be achieved through the procurement of a new fleet of trains, significant enhancements to the stations at the core of the Thameslink route and signalling control systems to support a reliable 24 tph service. Paul Bates , Project Director at Network Rail covered some of the following in his recent presentation on behalf of the IET Railway TPN in London on 26 March 2014. The need for high capacity signalling systems; Why ATO and ETCS were selected for Thameslink; How the project had developed the scheme, based on lessons learned from the Cambrian ERTMS early deployment scheme; How traffic management will be deployed across the Thameslink route to support the operation. Feedback after the event indicated…
A group of IET visitors recently enjoyed a visit to Heathrow's Air Traffic Control Tower on 31 March 2014. Those participating in the visit organised jointly by the IET Aerospace Technical Professional Network and the London Network Young Professionals Section were fortunate to be able to access the Visual Control Room at Heathrow. Commenting on the event, Mike Murdoch , Committee Member of the Aerospace TPN said: "A very instructive visit enhanced by the exciting 360 degree panoramic view from the tower's gallery, enabling a bird's eye appreciation of the airport's continuous arrival and departure operations". If you were unable to secure a place on the visit you can see some images from the visit taken by Mike Murdoch and Monique Chong. Mike and Kiran Addala from the YP Section have also…
The Transport Knowledge Technical Network are working with Jim Lupton and the Railway Industry Association on an 'Unlocking Innovation in Rail' programme. Jim is specifically reaching out to the colleagues in the rail industry to assisting in finding some new faces to help the train operating companies (e.g. ATOC) find solutions to the problems associated with braking and accelerating of trains. This includes but is not limited to the problems of “leaves on the line” - moisture/leaves etc. If you think what those sorts of weather conditions do if you’re in a car - when you brake or when you try and accelerate - your wheels spin. Bad enough in a car, but on a track, where you can’t deviate, and your momentum is so much greater, and you’re on a timetable where seconds mean money, and safety is…
