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  • The rise and fall of the floating ship

    On this day in (engineering) history… June 4, 1910 - Christopher Cockerell, English engineer, invented the hovercraft (d. 1999) On Saturday, June 4, in the summer of 1910, anyone standing outside ‘Wayside’, a house on Cavendish Avenue, in the university city of Cambridge, would have noticed the comings and goings of a birth in the family that lived there - midwife, a doctor, family members. The Cockerell family who lived at Wayside were famous already, their newborn son, Christopher would make them even more famous by inventing the hovercraft. Sir Christopher Cockerell in 1976 Source: Wikimedia Commons Famous father and his famous friends Christopher’s father, Sir Sydney Cockerell was a typographer and Director of Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum. Before that, he had been secretary…

  • IET France Local Network visit to ITER and the Observatoire de Haute Provence (OHP) 27th-28th May 2024

    The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) France Network in partnership with the Institute of Civil Engineers organized a visit to the ITER construction site and the Observatoire de Haute Provence for their respective members and guests. The ITER visit included a tour of the construction site including the main building and the tokamak ‘pit’ in which the reactor will be assembled as well as a presentation provided by Ms Margaret Graham, IET Honorary Fellow and Project Manager in charge of the Ion Cyclotron Project (the plasma resonance heating system), in which she outlined some of the great engineering challenges in constructing the research reactor. ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) has been in construction since 2007 and is currently expected to be…

  • The Application of Artificial Intelligence in Functional Safety

    The concern is not with the raw engineering challenges of developing the software and hardware parts of the solution, or with the nuances of creating a robust AI component, but with the understanding and successful integration of these solutions into our everyday lives. Many of the components within systems that utilise AI are not built in the same way as software and hardware components and therefore traditional systems development practices and associated methodologies do not account for the additional challenges faced during the development of AI. Moreover, the methods and techniques used to implement an AI algorithm are very different to those recommended under conventional safety standards. Hence, there is a ‘gap’ in being able to demonstrate that AI complies with conventional good practice…

  • Buzz On! Applying Artificial Intelligence, Signal, and Image Processing to Monitor the wellbeing of Honeybees

    Smart Hive? I thought that was about controlling your Central Heating … Hives certainly featured in the May IET Central London Network evening lecture, but as the home for Honeybees, a species vital for both our food supply and the general ecosystem. Dr Gordon Hunter , Associate Professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at Kingston University explained how monitoring bees in hives can detect and predict important events in the bee colony’s life cycle. Dr Hunter explained that honey production is somewhat of a sideshow, and the main purpose of bees is the pollination of crops and other flowering plants. But numbers are in decline due to a number of reasons including parasites e.g. the Varroa Mite ; habitat changes; pesticides; poor husbandry of bees ( apiculture ); and perhaps an unknown…

  • Amsterdammed!

    On this day in (engineering) history… Construction of the Afsluitdijk is completed, Netherlands, May 28, 1932 Your country is in constant danger of flooding and when, during one dreadful night, your coastline is devastated by a huge storm - ships wrecked, homes destroyed, and people killed - what do you do to stop it happening again? Build Europe’s longest dam, the Afsluitdijk. A satellite photo of the Afsluitdijk, The Netherlands, 30 June 2018. The Afsluitdijk changed the Zuiderzee into the IJsselmeer. To the north of the Afsluitdijk is the Wadden Sea, to the south is the Ijsselmeer. Source: Wikimedia Commons The issue The Netherlands is referred to as one of the Low Countries for a reason. Mostly flat, with the currents, tides and winds of the North Sea battering the coast,…

  • CAWE 24 comes to Belfast

    The Centre for Wireless Innovation (CWI) at Queen’s University Belfast, located in the historic Titanic Quarter, have just hosted the IET’s 12th Colloquium on Antennas, Wireless and Electromagnetics (CAWE) where over 40 young and experienced professionals were able to network and learn from each other at the intimate and friendly event. There were 6 posters and 9 presentations. (Several of the CAWE 24 presenters). Dr Phil Catherwood, Senior Future Systems Architect (Thales UK), described the role of a Future System Architect and the skills needed. Dr Anil Shukla (Senior Fellow QinetiQ) discussed research exploitation and how to engage with different types of stakeholders. Dr Neil Buchanan (above) discussed the challenges and the future of wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies…

  • Artificial Intelligence and the art of discovery

    AI has been used to create find and create a new material that could revolutionise not just the humble battery, but the time required to find new breakthroughs On January 9, this year, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and Microsoft announced a breakthrough in the quest for a new material to reduce the role of lithium in battery technology. Artificial Intelligence The involvement of Microsoft points to the most interesting factor in this announcement – the new material was not discovered after decades of meticulous research, but over the space of 80 hours. It took only nine months from project launch to building a prototype battery and using it to power a light bulb. The key was the use of generative artificial intelligence, provided by Microsoft’s Azure Quantum team. …

  • Leading the charge into the future…the man finding new ways to store energy

    Professor Yulong Ding has had a long and distinguished career across several fields of engineering, going back some thirty years. Now he has turned his attention to finding new ways to store energy… The way energy is generated is changing; moving away from fossil fuels to something less polluting and more sustainable. The catch is that, as with many solutions, it creates its own problem – renewable energy sources are not always available when they’re needed. What to do? The issue is complex, difficult, and not as straightforward as we might like, with each silver lining bringing its own set of clouds. The absence of heat It was a cold day when we met on teams to discuss energy storage, Professor Yulong Ding , (founding Chamberlain Chair of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham…

  • Challenges, compromise and creativity in energy storage

    Perhaps the only good thing to come out of climate change, other than moving to net-zero carbon in our economy, is the motivation it has given engineers to be creative in finding alternatives to oil and gas… For all the technological and industrial progress we have seen in the last 200 years, the great disadvantage is that it has been powered by fossil fuels, with all the attendant problems they bring. When is the Sun coming out? The move away from fossil fuels to renewables has one disadvantage - renewables are inconsistent. The sun does not always shine, the wind does not always blow, in contrast to fossil fuels, which are ‘always there.’ Even so, moving to net-zero carbon is essential to any attempts to mitigate and stabilise the problems thrown up by climate change. As with anything…

  • Giving back to the engineering community

    After 50 years in the engineering sector, Graham Tubbs felt it was time to give back to the industry that provided him with endless opportunities. By donating to the Futures Fund he’s providing financial support to the next generation of engineers. Graham Tubbs, CEO of TaG GH Consulting, has been an IET member his entire working life, joining as a graduate member in 1966, and most recently becoming an IET Fellow in 2016. It was around this time that his relationship with the organisation strengthened, as he began to support the IET’s scholarships and bursary schemes through financial donations. “As you get to a certain age you realise how important the opportunities presented to you were and I became more thankful for what I’d been offered. “Looking back on my…

    Elsa Scott
    Elsa Scott

  • IET Cambridge Volunteers at the Cambridge Festival 2024

    This year's Cambridge Festival took place over two weeks in March and once again the IET Cambridge Network ran a stand during the Family Weekend Event on 23rd and 24th March. We've been representing the IET at the Festival for many years and this year we were again joined by IET volunteers from the local area, keen to share their enthusiasm for engineering and technology. The team included experienced engineers, young professionals and undergraduates who ran demonstrations of engineering principles and answered questions about engineering and the IET. Demonstrations included energy generation and electromagnetic induction and we did experiments with magnets and plasmas. Interactive demos always work best and the chance for children to build an LED torch to take home has always been a popular…

  • Innovation Management TN event: Delivering R&D and innovation by using UK Universities - Your feedback needed!

    The IET’s Innovation Management Technical Network has been focusing on the challenges faced by UK innovation at its early stages. This addresses the rocky path to commercialisation, risk reduction, addressing the need for access to technical support and building an infrastructure to make innovation work. There are many benefits to R&D activity which combines company innovation challenges with university skills, assets and staff. A how to do this event may be needed, and this blog seeks to ask if this initiative might be useful to the IET community. We are considering an event which would offer companies easy access to all UK universities. It would include the start-ups and projects from the Set Squared group of universities which have raised over £4.4bn for start-ups and offer access to…

  • A close-run thing

    Space is a dangerous environment and getting there is equally hazardous. Then there is human ingenuity to get around any problem… May 14, 1973 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, is launched. We have been here before. Cape Canaveral is about to see the launch of another Saturn V rocket, the massive ‘candle’ that took astronauts to the moon and back. But that program ended in December due to budget cuts. What else can NASA do with its spare Saturn Vs and the 400,000 strong workforce that made the Apollo missions possible? Build and launch the first US space station, build and launch Skylab. Skylab configuration as planned Source: Wikimedia Commons In the 1950s, figures such as Arthur C. Clarke and Wernher Von Braun (by now technical director of the US Army’s ballistic…

  • The story of Roy Barker, a physicist with 70 years of membership at the IET

    Guest blog by Peter Barker Why this blog? This story is about the achievements of a far from ordinary scientist who made a major contribution to the digital age but received little recognition. My late father, Ronald Hugh Barker, died just three weeks short of his hundredth birthday. He kept telling me he didn’t want a party! This was typical of ‘Roy’ as he was a very modest, quiet, unassuming and kind man. He became a member of the IEE in 1944 and was elected a Fellow in 1960. He remained a member until his death, a period over 70 years. During this time, he served for many years on committees and became Chairman of the Control and Automation Division in 1971. The family is lucky to have been left a 170-page book of the ‘Barker Family History’ which Roy and his wife Wendy spent over…

  • Autonomous UAVs: a system architecture perspective

    The autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) drone market is growing at a fast pace, with applications including maintaining security, monitoring assets, providing an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) function in the defence industry [10], facilitating rapid logistics [7] [8] and providing passenger services with Urban Air Mobility (UAM) [9]. How are autonomous UAV systems designed, allowing the drone to fly without a human pilot? What components are required for an autonomous UAV system? This article gives a brief overview of the system architecture for a battery-powered electrical copter-based UAV system. An autonomous UAV drone system often follows the Drone Flight Stack architecture as shown in Figure 1. This graphic shows three major parts: the UAV Drone, the Communications…

  • Key Quality Control Methods and Tools for Manufacturing

    Quality control is the cornerstone of manufacturing excellence, ensuring that products meet or exceed customer expectations while minimising defects and waste. In today's competitive landscape, manufacturers must implement rigorous quality control practices and leverage advanced tools to maintain a competitive edge. This article explores the best practices and cutting-edge tools used in quality control across various manufacturing industries. At its core, quality control encompasses processes and techniques employed to monitor and maintain product quality throughout the manufacturing process. It involves identifying defects, deviations, and inefficiencies, and taking corrective actions to address them. Quality control is not a one-time activity but an ongoing effort that spans from raw material…

  • Rail Decarbonisation: Costs, Electrification, London’s Future.

    Do we let our own personal experiences influence our enthusiasm for Green initiatives? The April IET Central London Network evening lecture was presented in concert with our colleagues from the IET Railway Technical Network and featured two guest speakers on the topic of Rail Decarbonisation. Our first speaker was Dr Zhongbei Tian from The Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education (BCRRE) . Zhongbei is currently one of 160 researchers in the Centre of Excellence in Rail Decarbonisation working to support the requirement for the UK to achieve Net Zero emissions by 2050. Currently transport makes up around one quarter of UK domestic greenhouse gas emissions and amongst the various milestones is the ambition to have no diesel only trains running on the UK rail network by 2040…

  • Join our new Disability Member Network

    Are you a disabled engineer and IET member? We’re building a new Disability Member Network where you can share peer support, frustrations, good practice and guidance with fellow disabled engineers and help us ensure your voices are heard and represented within the IET and wider industry. This network will meet every 6 to 8 weeks, and joining in our early stages will allow you to express what you would like to get out of this space and help us to shape what the network will be for our members going forward. If you’d like to join, please email inclusion@theiet.org . Our first network meeting will take place virtually on Thursday 13 June, 1:30pm to 2:30pm BST. You can also join our Neurodiversity Member Network, which meets virtually every 6 to 8 weeks and is a supportive space for neurodivergent…

  • What are the contributing factors that result in Project Failures? Some points for consideration.

    When reading the media there are often observed projects that have been a significant failure. In recent years within there has been a multitude of project failures which range from replacement sea links (shipping) between the islands off Scotland, the replacement chain ferry in Cowes on the Isle of White, the integrated IT System within the UK-NHS, the recent Post Office Horizon system scandal, and the constant delays and cost overruns of MOD projects to name but a few. Projects fail for a multitude of reasons and this article seeks to name some of the principle reasons for such failures and identify important issues for consideration when defining, planning and executing a project. Lack of Proper Planning Failure to identify and manage risks is a significant if not the main contributing…

  • Digital accessibility: what is it and why does it matter?

    1.3 billion people worldwide (16% of the total population) experience significant disability. 1 Digital accessibility is about designing and building digital products that can be used by everyone, regardless of ability or impairment, in different environments and on different devices. It's also a legal requirement in many countries (for example in the UK under the Equality Act of 2010). Websites and applications designed with accessibility in mind are measurably easier to use, not only by people with disabilities such as impaired vision, limited mobility or cognitive difficulties, but also by neurodivergent users (e.g. people with dyslexia) and others who could experience difficulties using a digital service in particular situations (e.g. when using a phone in bright sunlight, or in a noisy…

  • Barriers are meant to be broken

    Each problem can be overcome, because they are our own creation. Discuss… As we have seen in ‘ What do we think about when we think about disability? ’ , disability and other forms of profound dependence are normal, not unusual occurrences. It happens to everybody all the time This can’t be stressed enough. Each of us at some stage of our lives, whether temporary or permanent, will be reliant on others for our health, wellbeing, even our survival. We are dependent upon parents in our infancy; we become dependent on family members during ill health; we become dependent upon carers and health systems, as well as family members, during old age. What are the barriers? People in this situation find themselves facing all sorts of barriers to exercising their own agency within a societal…

  • The internal memo that built the modern world

    On This Day in (Engineering) History If you want to share a thought or some information you write it in a letter, put that in an envelope and slip it into a post box in the street. Anything bigger, like a box of files or a book, is sent as a parcel carried by couriers, and it all – letter or parcel - travels through a postal system made up of thousands of people delivering everything by hand. Not anymore. On April 30, 1993 - CERN announces that World Wide Web protocols will be free to all. Just to be aware… To clear up a common misunderstanding, one that has entered the language – the World Wide Web (WWW) is not the Internet . The internet - how we got here Like the invention of the wheel, the sail, the motorcar and the coffeemaker, it is hard to imagine how life was before the…

  • What do we think about when we think about disability?

    The human species is not always very good at dealing with disability. Does our reluctance to find sensible, workable solutions grow out of how our culture views people with a disability? Perhaps, for some, ‘disability’ conjures up images of a group of awkward, time-consuming outsiders who always need our help. Others may think of disabled people as folks that should, by definition, lead protected, sheltered lives because they cannot care for themselves. In both instances, this pictures an out-group, divorced from, and yet troublingly part of, wider society. Who or what is ‘disabled’? A good place to start would be to as what the term ‘disabled’ means and who it applies to. Disability is worth thinking about because the term, and how we often use it, is based on a misnomer, on ideas…

  • IET Robotics Talk and Tour: United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority including RACE

    Joint European Torus (JET) tokamak achieved a world record for energy output in its final runs at the end of last year ( https://www.newscientist.com/article/2415909-uk-nuclear-fusion-reactor-sets-new-world-record-for-energy-output/ ). Since it started operating in 1983, JET has contributed to major advances in fusion science and engineering but also to the field of robotics. RACE is the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) centre for Remote Applications in Challenging Environments. The centre has been supporting the operation of JET, developing robots for routine maintenance, replacing components as part of upgrades to the machine, and now the safe decommissioning of the device. On March 6, 2024, the IET Robotic and Mechatronics Technical and Professional Network arranged a tour of RACE…

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