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MTC Conference on Digitalising Manufacturing

11 August 2019

Hazel Carlin, on of our cohort 5 research students, attended the The Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) Conference on Digitalising Manufacturing 2018 was held  at the MTC at Anstey Park, Coventry on the 29th-30th October 2018.  Hazel provided a write on her experience:

First of all, we gathered in the lecture theatre and heard various short presentations on Asset Utilisation and Future Business Models. Then we had the choice of different ‘technology presentations’ held in separate rooms upstairs.

Firstly I went to the Outsystems session. This is a company that provides ‘low-code’ which enables a user to create programs and apps without coding. Being relatively inexperienced in programming, I thought this looked like a good idea.

Then there were formal presentations on topics such as Meggitt’s Intelligent Workbench and the Digital Readiness Level tool. Before lunch there was another choice of technology sessions, so I attended the one by ATS Bus. This showed me the practicalities of how the Internet of Things can join different hardware items together.

Following lunch there was a choice of interactive workshops where industry leaders discussed their projects and we could ask questions. I chose the ‘Asset Utilisation’ strand, where Network Rail was represented, amongst others. There was a final wrap-up session before everyone departed.

I found it a really interesting conference that sparked my interest in various Internet of Things topics.

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The Transition Zone Training Ethos presented at the ASEE Conference

30 June 2019

The 126th edition of the Annual Conference and Exposition of the American Society for Engineering Education took place in Tampa, Florida from 16th to 19th June 2019.

The CDT-EI executive team was invited to attend and participate in the panel 'Non-traditional PhDs', a session dedicated to novel formulas and upcoming new ways of running PhDs, in particular with a strong industry-facing flavour. Other participants in the panel, moderated by Prof M Dyrenfurth, were academic leads of graduates programmes, were from Purdue U, John Hopkins U and Texas A&M U.

The CDT-EI Executive Director Dr Carmen Torres-Sánchez presented the Transition Zone ethos, which scaffolds the training component of the PhD done under the CDT-EI umbrella. The full paper can be found here:
https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/140/papers/27849/view

As an academic-led industry-informed PhD programme, the colleagues in the States found interesting the emphasis we put on preparing industry-ready graduates and the 'T-shape' approach to a scholarly piece of research coupled with the exposure to other disciplines so the PhD researchers are conversant with other disciplines other than their PhD topic, including business.

We look forward to continuing discussing with our colleagues on the other side of the Atlantic ideas and initiatives to shape the PhD degree of the future.

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Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) World Congress Experience

18 June 2019

Rhys Comissiong (Cohort 2) and Shaun Smith (Cohort 4) recently participated in SAE International World Congress Experience which was held from April 9th-11th at the Cobo Centre in Detroit, Michigan. The conference consists of a wide variety of technical sessions, keynote talks, leadership summits, seminars, networking opportunities and an exhibition where industry leaders such as Ford Nissan and Honda showcased their latest innovations.

From left to right – Rhys Comissiong, Shaun Smith, Dr Dezong Zhao & Dr James Knowles at Cobo Centre

Rhys presented in the Sensor Fusion technical session on “An Assessment of a Sensor Network Using Bayesian Analysis demonstrated on an Inlet Manifold”. The paper was co-authored with Dr Thomas Steffen (supervisor) and Dr Leo Shead, Technical Lead on the project from Caterpillar Inc. The work consisted of using Bayesian statistics to analyse sensor information to understand how different sensor configurations affect variable estimation. The methods were applied to charge mass flow estimation on an internal combustion engine but can be used on to help control engineers design sensor configurations for a range of applications including autonomous vehicles.

Shaun presented “A Bifurcation Analysis of an Open Loop Internal Combustion Engine”, co-authored by Dr James Knowles and Dr Byron Mason. The talk focused on how tools from nonlinear science could be applied to engine modelling to complement any analysis. The technique provides additional insight to the system by qualitatively describing the systems behavior for many possible inputs in an efficient way. The work is interdisciplinary, so having presented a similar version of talk to a mathematical audience at a previous conference on nonlinear science, SAE WCX provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the work to attendees from the automotive industry.

In addition to providing their talks, the pair took advantage of the several opportunities available. Rhys engaged with industry experts at the exhibition showing the latest technological developments, as well as attending talks in connected vehicles and machine learning. Shaun attended various technical talks on vehicle dynamics & stability, areas directly relevant to his research interests.

For more information on SAE WCX visit: https://www.sae.org/attend/wcx

For more information about Rhys’s paper;
https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2019-01-0121/

For more information about Shaun’s paper;
https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2019-01-0194/

Rhys presented in the Sensor Fusion technical session on “An Assessment of a Sensor Network Using Bayesian Analysis demonstrated on an Inlet Manifold”. The paper was co-authored with Dr Thomas Steffen (supervisor) and Dr Leo Shead, Technical Lead on the project from Caterpillar Inc. The work consisted of using Bayesian statistics to analyse sensor information to understand how different sensor configurations affect variable estimation. The methods were applied to charge mass flow estimation on an internal combustion engine but can be used on to help control engineers design sensor configurations for a range of applications including autonomous vehicles.

Shaun presented “A Bifurcation Analysis of an Open Loop Internal Combustion Engine”, co-authored by Dr James Knowles and Dr Byron Mason. The talk focused on how tools from nonlinear science could be applied to engine modelling to complement any analysis. The technique provides additional insight to the system by qualitatively describing the systems behavior for many possible inputs in an efficient way. The work is interdisciplinary, so having presented a similar version of talk to a mathematical audience at a previous conference on nonlinear science, SAE WCX provided an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the work to attendees from the automotive industry.

In addition to providing their talks, the pair took advantage of the several opportunities available. Rhys engaged with industry experts at the exhibition showing the latest technological developments, as well as attending talks in connected vehicles and machine learning.Shaun attended various technical talks on vehicle dynamics & stability, areas directly relevant to his research interests.

For more information on SAE WCX visit: https://www.sae.org/attend/wcx

For more information about Rhys’s paper;

https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2019-01-0121/

For more information about Shaun’s paper;

https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/2019-01-01

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Cybersecurity: a sucessful Foresight Lecture

18 June 2019

On 22nd May Prof Awais Rashid, from Bristol U, visited us to deliver the 2019 CDT-EI Annual Foresight Lecture. This year the selected topic was cybersecurity, a very relevant and timely topic when it comes to protecting infrastructure and industrial resources, activities that rely heavily on automation and ICT. To a 100+ audience he discussed issues related to security decision-making, awareness raising, and human psicology when it comes to inform or predict behavioural patterns both of security experts as well as cyber attackers.

At the start of the Lecture the atendees visited the exhibition area where the most recent activity undertaken by our PhD students was displayed. The visitors could interact with our students to find out more about what our CDT PhD students do in the different areas of research in Embedded Intelligence.

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Transition Zone™ - Our training ethos presented at the ASEE Annual Conference

16 June 2019

The 126th edition of the Annual Conference & Exposition of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) will be a platform to present our PhD training programme, the Transition Zone™. Our Executive Director and Director of Training, Dr Torres-Sánchez, has been invited to participate in the session on 'Non-traditional Doctoral Programs' which will take place on June 19th in Tampa, Florida. A round table with representatives from Texas A&M University, John Hopkins University, Purdue University, Purdue Polytechnic Institute and the CDT-EI will discuss how industry-ready graduates can be produced by designing training schemes that promote professional management while doing a PhD. This round table will be preceeded by a presentation of the CDT-EI Transition Zone training ethos, which is our bespoke training programme to support transitions through different stages in a researcher’s career:

(1) into doctoral studies as a high performing researcher,

(2) through doctoral studies to make the most out of their doctorate and associated training and, (3) on exiting, to empower and equip them as highly employable graduates.

Information about our paper can be seen here: https://www.asee.org/public/conferences/140/papers/27849/view 

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CDT-EI Annual Report 2017-18

13 May 2019

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“Everything is Awesome!!!” or is it? Cyber Security Risks in Critical Infrastructure

29 April 2019

The CDT-EI is holding a Foresight Lecture by Prof Awais Rashid, University of Bristol, on Cyber Security Risks.  The event is free to attend (registration is necessary) and visitors will have the opportunity to find out what the CDT-EI students and co-sponors are working on in our exhibition entitled "What do CDT-EI students do?"

Abstract:

Industrial Control Systems play an important role in the monitoring, control, and automation of critical infrastructure such as water, gas, oil, and electricity. Recent years have seen a number of high profile cyber attacks on such infrastructure exemplified by Stuxnet and the Ukrainian Power Grid attacks. This naturally begs the question: how should we manage cyber security risks in such infrastructure on which the day-to-day functioning of our society relies? In this talk I will discuss insights from three years of research studying cyber security in such settings. The talk will highlight the complexity of managing security in a landscape shaped by the often competing demands of a variety of stakeholders, e.g., managers, control engineers, enterprise IT personnel and field site operators. I will also discuss how the security decision-making patterns of the various stakeholders contrast, with some surprising (or perhaps not so surprising) insights into the decision patterns of security experts and so-called non-experts.

Date: 22 May 2019

Time: 12:00 (Refreshments available from 11:30)

Location: Room 1.108 Sir David Davis Building, Loughborough University (please use entrance C)

Exhibition:  'What do CDT-EI PhD students do?' Find out what our students and co-sponsors are working on.

Click here to register.

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BigDat2019 Research Training Week

25 February 2019

CDT-EI Cohort 2 student Rhys Comissiong and Cohort 5 student Jack Prior attended attended the BigDat2019 research training week, hosted by the IRDTA at the University of Cambridge Department of Engineering from the 7th to 11th January 2019.

Jack Prior gave a short account of the event:

The event comprised of a series of workshops focusing on its namesake: the evolving landscape of techniques available to data scientists that can aid in the handling of Big Data. Whilst the array of 4.5 hour lecture series available all shared a common link to this area, there was great diversity in the array of techniques and topics discussed. These included, but were not limited to:

• Big Data Clustering
• Network Analysis
• Cloud Computing
• Data-Driven Optimisation
• Data and Deep Learning Ethics

These modules were delivered by the highest possible calibre of speaker, including incredibly cited technical innovators such as Geoffrey McLachlan (Finite Mixture Modelling) and Sankar Kumar Pal (Granular Computing), with a keynote delivered by Kenji Takeda, former global lead for Microsoft’s Azure for Research Program. As a researcher in Embedded Intelligence, the event has been transformational of my understanding of data: how their volume, shape and structure vitally affect their successful deployment in problem solving. The IRDTA hosts training weeks in the field of data science multiple times per year globally. I would strongly advise my peers to attend, based on the value proposition of BigDat2019.

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