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  • 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…

  • What is a Project? How is the project distinguished from other activities carried out by an organisation?

    In offering this contribution to this site I am considering the more junior members of those entering a career within Project Management as I reflect on my own early experiences many years ago. One of the issues I had at the start of my career was understanding what a project actually was, and importantly what was not a project but rather activities that can be termed normal business operations. This article hopes to make the distinction clear to those at the start, or early stages of their career in Project Management. So what is a project? What are the phases of a project? How are Projects Managed? What about tools and techniques? What follows is a brief introduction to the world of project management. Definition of a Project Note that maintenance work is not a project as it does not…

  • ‘The science of the judgments of the stars’: an early manuscript from the IET’s rare book collection

    By Anne Locker, Library and Archives Manager The Hand List of the Library of Magnetic and Electrical Books in the Possession of Silvanus Phillips Thompson is the earliest record we have of the S P Thompson Library, acquired by the Institution of Electrical Engineers (now the IET) after Thompson’s death in 1916. Silvanus P Thompson – engineer, polymath and bibliophile – published this meticulous record of his library of 13 manuscripts and around 900 early printed books on the history of science in 1914. Five of the manuscripts in Thompson’s collection are dated before 1600. The smallest of these is a much earlier catalogue of scientific texts, the Speculum Astronomicae of Albertus Magnus. The manuscript is described by Thompson as follows: MS XIV Century. Vellum, 56 ll. + 2 blank.…

  • Soaring with IoT: Revolutionising Aerospace While Safeguarding Cybersecurity

    IoT has become the new buzzword and a ground-breaking advancement in technology, transforming not only our homes and personal devices but also making waves in the engineering world, with the aerospace sector being no exception. But what exactly is IoT, and how is it being utilized in the commercial aerospace industry? Moreover, what are the cyber risks associated with IoT, and, crucially, is the aerospace sector prepared to embrace it? At its core, IoT, or the Internet of Things, is a concept that enables everyday objects or "things" to connect to the Internet, allowing them to send and receive data and take actions based on the information they receive. This connectivity extends to devices like smart thermostats, fitness trackers, home security systems, and more. While IoT encompasses…

  • Blasting off from the Cape

    On this day in (engineering) history… There have been people occupying this spot, roughly halfway up Florida’s east coast, for 12,000 years. When Europeans arrived, the ‘cape of currents’ became notorious for shipwrecks. Its modern name was given by Spanish explorer Francisco Gordillo in 1521, first appearing on the map in 1564. Cabo Cañaveral (‘reed bed’ or ‘sugar cane plantation’), is the third oldest European place name in the USA. Today, April 16, 1972, at 12:54pm EST, Apollo 16 blasts off from Cape Canaveral. Apollo 16 blasts off from Launch Complex 39 at Kennedy Space Center, Florida. Source: Wikimedia Commons This latest mission , would be the fifth to touch down on the Moon itself, (notoriously, Apollo 13 never made it to the surface but did return to Earth safely ), the tenth…

  • Why does UK business stand out in its lack of concern about green engineering skills?

    When research reveals a trend as worrying as the fact that fewer than 5% of engineering companies from thousands around the world who took part in a recent survey believe they have the skills in place to be resilient to climate change*, it’s probably unfair to pick out how one country perceives the problem. The results of the IET’s recent International Green Skills Survey, however, throw up some odd facts about UK industry that bear closer examination and might offer clues about how industry worldwide can respond to the warning that a lack of skills is the most common barrier to achieving net zero carbon emissions. The bottom line, unsurprisingly, is that everyone’s preoccupied with the potential impact of climate change on their business. In the UK, 65% of respondents say they are ‘concerned…

  • Towards getting it right, some AI good practice

    Countless words have been written and spoken about what is or might go wrong with AI. How much has been written about AI good practice? Here are some good practices worth considering… A thought Much is written about the ethics, possibilities and risks, even existential fears, associated with Artificial Intelligence. Less appears to have been written about the best practice in using it now. Taking account of best practice allows the designer and operator of an AI system to create a solid, trustworthy reputation, while keeping to the correct side of the law. Some would say the key to good AI is to remain focused on representing the customer’s requirements to the AI in a way the AI can understand, albeit remembering humans speak human, AI and computers speak numbers. The Landscape Before…

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