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  • Airlander - a New Price/Speed Option

    IET Central London Evening Lecture, Savoy Place, 21-Sep-2016 Joint event with The Royal Aeronautical Society Presented by: Andy Barton, Hybrid Air Vehicles   Can we now forget the aeroplane, and embrace the re-birth of the airship? From what we heard from Andy, the answer is "yes", at least for some applications. Whilst not cheaper than sea, rail or road freight (on a cost/load basis), it could well be the answer where such infrastructure does not exist or is impractical.   The modern solution is quite different from what we knew from the 20th century, widely used in WW2. Then, they were rigid and filled with hydrogen, suffering from well-documented drawbacks and disasters. The current generation has learnt from the past. Barnes Wallis, who designed the successful R100,  gave the founder of…

  • Coming soon, the clever cars that will call 999 in a crash...

    'but raise fears emergency services will be swamped when they become compulsory'   - The Daily Mail Read more...

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Ineos welcomes first delivery of US shale gas

    The first delivery of American shale gas to Britain is set to arrive this morning, as 27,500 cubic metres of ethane arrives at the Grangemouth petrochemical plant near Edinburgh. Read more...

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Employers keep their eyes on ‘Stem’ subjects

    Science, technology, engineering and maths graduates are in the frame for lucrative jobs Read more...

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Access world-class radar, sonar and navigation research, online and in print.

    Did you know the IET has a full suite of Radar, Sonar and Navigation resources? Access world-class radar, sonar and navigation research, online and in print.  Providing fresh perspectives and developments in a range of topics within the fields of radar, sonar and navigation   IET Books  – find out about current, new and forthcoming book IET Journals  - the IET Journals portfolio offers a wealth of research and information in a wide range engineering and technology fields. Electronic Letters  - Electronics Letters is an internationally renowned peer-reviewed rapid-communication journal, which publishes short original research papers every two weeks. The broad and interdisciplinary scope covers the latest developments in all electronic and electrical engineering related fields. Digital Library…

    Lynsay Callaghan
    Lynsay Callaghan

  • Making the difference: Manufacturing graduates that are ready for work

    I'm very happy to turn over this blog posting to  Glenn Miles , lecturer at Coventry University who tells us more about the new Manufacturing Engineering Degree. It is late September as I write and next month sees the return of students to Coventry University.  This year, as new course director of the relatively new Manufacturing Engineering degree, I have inherited a unique set of final year students. They are unique in several respects.  Most appropriately for this blog they will be the first graduates of the new course and will be the living evidence of the hard work that has gone into the creation and delivery of the course as it prepares for accreditation with the IET. They will also be the first graduates that have been taught on the UK’s first “Faculty on the Shop Floor”, a Unipart-Coventry…

  • 2016-17 Session - Welcome Message From TPN Chairman

    October sees the IET TPN committees enter the new session for 2016/2017. We will be looking ahead to the next 12 months to implement our plan for workshops, events and online content to support and expose the inner workings of the space sector. So what can we learn from 2016 so far and what can we look forward to as we go into 2017? The TPN kicked off the 2015/2016 session following the well-received Space systems, Services and Applications for Cities of the Future event, held at the Satellite Applications Catapult in Harwell. This one-day workshop highlighted the bright future both government and industry saw in the space sector supporting the increasing need for continuous connectivity and real-time, wide-spread data acquisition and dissemination for audiences ranging from institutional decision…

    Deborah-Claire McKenzie
    Deborah-Claire McKenzie

  • Welcome To The Aerospace TPN

    The past few years has seen the Aerospace Community, TPN and TAP go through a series of positive changes in terms of refocus, refresh and expansion.  We have seen the formation of an Aerospace Young Professionals Group, the inaugural Aerospace Annual Symposium, the delivery and support to a number of successful aerospace technical events around the UK, Europe and Asia, as well as the provision of a significant amount of technical advice in response to requests internally from the IET as well as from a number of UK and global external bodies and media. The 2018 session promises to be another exciting year for the Aerospace TPN as we look to build on the successes of previous sessions, through continuing engagement with industry, academia and government and growing the network and the number…

    Deborah-Claire McKenzie
    Deborah-Claire McKenzie

  • Autumn 2016 Newsletter Now Placed On Communities Page

    The Autumn 2016 Newsletter has now been added to the Communities page.

    John Savage
    John Savage

  • South Island LN Treasurer's Report 2015/16

    The video below is the Treasurer's Report at the South Island AGM, for the 2015/16 year.  Paul Isaacs, the Honorary Treasurer is presenting.

    Karla Smith
    Karla Smith

  • IBC 2016: 4K, VR, IP, Object Based Sound And Content Protection

    It’s difficult to imagine seeing someone you know amongst 55,000 people but at IBC it’s the order of the day (and it started at the airport before you'd boarded the plane...) Arriving late on Thursday and getting ready for the start of the IBC exhibition on Friday surrounded by unpacked carpets and empty walk-ways there was an electric buzz in the air; will the stands be ready in time? No doubt for some Friday morning signalled the end of a hard night’s graft! But for me there was a friendly – and familiar face – already in the Partners’ Pavilion: SMPTE President Barbara Lange, who spoke passionately about SMPTE’s Centenary anniversary at this year’s JLB lecture .   With 15 halls packing in 1,700 exhibitors you know you’ll be leaving IBC with a few blisters but your mind bubbling with new innovation…

    Former Staff Member
    Former Staff Member

  • IET Stevenage - September CoderDojo (Fear Element Included)

    We (IET volunteers and I) managed to pull off another successful CoderDojo on Saturday! This event took place at our Stevenage office, where 37 children and some parents attended.  We continued to work on Scratch for game development and HTML for website building, in addition to introducing the BBC Micro:Bit; an idea that was conceived by the BBC and made possible by 29 partners, including the IET and CoderDojo. Despite the sheer terror that was instilled in me, due to lack of Wi-Fi for the first 30 minutes and the frantic running around that ensued; we received excellent feedback from those that attended, with a commitnemt from those commuting from London to Stevenage, to attend the next session!  Honestly though, I now know how characters feel in movies when the dolly-zoom / vertigo shot…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • South Island AGM and Committee 2016/2017

    The South Island Local Network held its AGM on the 29th of September 2016.  At the AGM, reports from the Chair and the Treasurer were received, past and future events were discussed, and a new committee was elected.  Thank you to the members that attended. The new committee for Oct 2016 to Sept 2017 is: Chairperson: Joe Connolly Honorary Treasurer: Paul Isaacs University of Canterbury On Campus Co-Chair & SRRC Rep: Moana Smith University of Canterbury On Campus Co-Chair: Grace Lee Committee Member: Robert Cooke Committee Member: Karla Smith Please get in touch with any of us if you have any questions you'd like to ask, suggestions for future events, or would like to volunteer and help run things!  You can either private message us here on Engineering Communities, or create a discussion post…

    Karla Smith
    Karla Smith

  • Mentoring Awareness Week 2016

    Do you remember someone from early in your career who supported and inspired you to become the professional you are today? Could you be that person for someone working toward Professional Registration? Following the success of the first Mentoring Awareness Week in 2015 where we recruited 25 new mentors, The IET Mentoring Service are happy to announce the 2016 Mentoring Awareness week.  This week of activity recognises the work done by those volunteering through the IET Volunteer Mentoring Service and also seeks new mentors to support those working toward professional registration.  If you are already professionally registered with the IET, and have just a few hours a month to share with another member and feel that you could pass on your experience and support a developing engineer outside…

    Kathryn Bain
    Kathryn Bain

  • Ethics Guidelines For Robots

    I read recently in an article by the Guardian that BSI has released a set of guidelines for ethical robot design: BS8611 Robots and robotic devices. According to the article, it is intended for use by robot and robotics device designers and managers and is designed to help people in these roles to identify and avoid areas of potential ethical harm.  Alan Winfield, a professor of robotics at the University of the West of England, said they represented “the first step towards embedding ethical values into robotics and AI”. The Robotics & Mechatronics TPN have a regular slot in their annual programme on   Robot Ethics and you can read more about our previous events in our blog section

    Joanne Longton
    Joanne Longton

  • Interested In Michael Faraday? Resources On The IET Website

    Michael Faraday was born 225 years (and one day!) ago, on 22 September 1791. Faraday is an important name at the IET, and besides the statue outside Savoy Place, and the rooms, awards and events named after him, there are resources on Faraday's life and work in the Archives section of the IET website. The IET Archives also holds a world-class collection of Faraday's correspondence and personal notebooks, presented to the then Institution of Electrical Engineers by his family. This collection includes Faraday's diary and commonplace book, as well as correspondence with notable figures of the day including Charles Dickens. More information can be found on our online catalogue.  To find out more about Faraday and the Faraday collections at the IET, visit our  Michael Faraday page .

    Anne Locker
    Anne Locker

  • 2017 BNU Student Prize

    This year's prize of £250 has been awarded to Omar Khan.  He is a student on the BSc Computing and Web Development programme at Buckinghamshire New University. The prize and a certificate were awarded Omar's Graduation Ceremony on Wednesday 6th September.  Omar developed a prototype mobile App that was aimed at improving memory in adults over 50. To achieve this, he will  made use of a range of techniques learned on his course including, human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, mobile technologies and software development methodology.  Omar received an exceptionally high mark for his Project and did exceptionally well across his whole course. Omar undertook the planning, development and analysis of the effectiveness of a memory aid app aiming to provide cerebral stimulation with…

    Andrew Dodd
    Andrew Dodd

  • Mechatronics 2016 - Best Symposium Paper

    The award, sponsored by the IET Robotics & Mechatronics TPN, was presented to Stefan Flixeder at the closing ceremony of the Mechatronics 2016 ( 7th IFAC Symposium on Mechatronic Systems & 15th Mechatronics Forum International Conference) held at Loughborough university 5th-8th September 2016. Recognition was given for the “best symposium paper” which provided outstanding contributions to the subject of Mechatronic Systems.  A shortlist was derived from the reviews received on the papers, from which a Selection Committee chose the winner. Stefan received the Dipl.-Ing. degree in electrical engineering from TU Wien (TUW), Vienna, Austria, in 2012. Since 2012, he works as a project assistant at the Automation and Control Institute at TU Wien. His research interests include physics-based modeling…

  • Police in America are using Robots to disarm bombs

    Here's a neat little video I came across, showing how the police in America are using robots in dangerous situations.

    Joanne Longton
    Joanne Longton

  • An artificially intelligent autopilot that learns by example

    ON JUNE 1st 2009, an Air France airliner travelling from Rio de Janeiro to Paris flew into a mid-Atlantic storm. Ice began forming in the sensors used by the aircraft to measure its airspeed, depriving the autopilot of that vital data. So, by design, the machine switched itself off and ceded control to the pilots. Without knowing their speed, and with no horizon visible in a storm in the dead of night, the crew struggled to cope. Against all their training, they kept the plane’s nose pointed upward, forcing it to lose speed and lift. Shortly afterwards the aeroplane plummeted into the ocean, killing all 228 people on board. French air-accident investigators concluded that a lack of pilot training played a big part in the tragedy. As cockpits become ever more computerised, pilots need to keep…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Are Robots Going To Steal Our Jobs?

    Have a look at some comments we captured at our International Robots Showcase day back in July.   What do you think?    Comment in the box below or start a discussion

    Joanne Longton
    Joanne Longton

  • Speaker Highlight - TechAAL 2016 (Part Three)

    With the 2nd IET International Conference on Technologies for Active and Assisted Living (TechAAL 2016) only around a month away, we are thrilled to announce that our final keynote speaker has been confirmed! The two-day conference by the IET Vision and Imaging Network will be taking place next month on the 24-25 October 2016 at IET London: Savoy Place . Please welcome: Ian Spero , Social Entrepreneur; Founder: Creative Skills for Life; Strategic Advisor: Innovate UK. About Ian:  Through over 30 years professional experience Ian Spero has gathered a deep knowledge and belief in the power of private/public sector alliances to deliver business benefit and social impact.  As we reach a tipping point concerning the use of technology in our lives, Ian has set up and now runs Creative Skills for…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Speaker Highlight - Intelligent Imaging (Part Nine)

    With the Intelligent Imaging event just around the corner, we are revealing our last few speakers for the day! The event will take place on the 14 October 2016 at IET London: Savoy Place . We are delighted to confirm: Robert A Lamb , Chief Technical Officer (EO), Leonardo. About Robert: Robert directs the Applied Research programme for electro-optic technologies in support of future product development in laser systems and EO sensors for airborne targeting. He has thirty years’ experience as a research scientist in solid state lasers, non-linear optics, low-light level sensing and photonics in both MoD and industry. His main areas of research include solid state lasers for designation, rangefinding and countermeasures, single photon counting 3D imaging lidar, computational imaging and photonics…

    Former Community Member
    Former Community Member

  • Eurohaptics 2016

    The IET Robotics and Mechatronics TPN recently supported and participated at the Eurohaptics 2016 Conference. Below, our exec team member, Christos Bergeles reports back: Eurohaptics 2016 took place in London, at Imperial College, and was hailed as one of the most successful events in terms of participation and submission. Overall, more than 400 attendees joined the conference, to learn about the achievements presented on more than 90 academic papers. Eurohaptics is among the flagship conferences for haptic interfaces and algorithms, linking strongly to the robotics technologies that the TPN promotes. It was an excellent opportunity for IET to engage with the participants of the conference at our booth, alongside the industrial exhibitors. IET was one of the 21 sponsors of the conference, spanning…

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