Drones learn to navigate by imitating Cars and Bicycles Autonomously

The commercial drones these days make use of the Global Positioning System (GPS) to traverse. Such a method works fine when the drones fly at a high altitude. But the real hurdle arises when these drones navigate autonomously at a lower altitude. At such low altitudes, there are several issues such as

  • More density of building
  • Unstructured stress with the movement of several vehicles and humans.

The drones at this level have not reached to such a stage where they can react to an unforeseen event quickly. There are ways to enhance the functionalities of these drones.

Integration of autonomous navigation in drones

The development of DroNet by researchers at the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) Robotics and the University of Zurich shows that autonomous navigation of drone is possible. It is an algorithm that helps the drones to fly through the busy streets of a city safely. With the help of one input image, it produces two outputs:

  • A steering angle and
  • A collision probability

The former helps the drone to avoid accidents, while the later helps it to identify the dangerous situations and react to them.

Powerful artificial intelligence algorithm

A team of Swiss researchers sought the help of a powerful algorithm and a normal smartphone camera to make the drones smarter. The combination helped the drone interpret the real-time situation and react accordingly. The algorithm used, consisted of Deep Neural Network.

Teaching the Drones through Cars and Bicycles

The collection of training examples is one of the biggest issues in Deep Learning. The drones can learn by imitating the driving behavior in the examples. Thus, Prof. Scaramuzza, along with his team collected the data from cars and bicycles driving in urban areas.

Fully autonomous drones – The Future

Through this research, the doors are open to several applications such as parcel delivery, surveillance and much more. The drones can drive within the clustered roads, with ease and save a lot of time. However, the team cautions from expecting too much from cheap drones.

Introducing AutoCAD 2018

The CAD technology is consistently updating its features to offer you supreme quality designs. The technology will help you to develop aerodynamic bikes, high-speed railways, or energy efficient building. The technology is adding value to the designed products improving the designer’s day to day efficiency. The year 2018 has brought about a lot of features in AutoCAD and AutoCAD LT technology. These added features will help designers to create and share precise drawings using the innovative productivity tools. This tool will also save a lot of time and minimize frustration making things simpler. Below are some of the enhanced features the 2018 version will bring about.

PDF Import Enhancements

The PDF import features, as indicated by the design professionals will help them save a lot of money. The AutoCAD 2018 let you use the SHX text recognition tool to quickly convert the imported PDF geometry to text and Mtext objects. The improvised text and Mtext tools, in turn, lets you convert a combination of single and multi-line text objects into a single multi-line text object automatically predicting the formatting.

Object Selection

The AutoCAD 2018 lets you begin with a selection window in one part of your drawing. You can then pan the zoom to another part while maintaining a selection of the off-screen objects.

External Reference Path Enhancements

The broken reference issue is resolved in the enhanced AutoCAD 2018 version. The new version helps to reduce this issue by saving time and minimizing the frustration. The new integrated tools help you to easily replace the paths of one or more missing references with a new path.

High Resolution (4K) Monitor Support

The 2018 version is enhanced to support high-resolution monitors to ensure the best possible viewing experience. The enhancement will make it possible to view objects and figures on a 4K display or higher versions. To make this possible, the new AutoCAD 2018 has a possibly scaled up user surface elements such as the Start tab, Palettes, Command line, Toolbars, Dialogue boxes, ViewCube, Grips and Pick pox. These elements are appropriately scaled and displayed as per the Windows settings.

 

The AutoCAD 2018 has some promising features to help you develop your designs in the way never imagined before. The new version brings a new set of capabilities to improve the graphics and performance while ensuring the Trusted DWG technology you always have been relying upon. The DWG format is updated to improve the efficiency of open and save operations.

SOLIDWORKS 2018 Debuts

SOLIDWORKS is back again in the year 2018. The package has some added tools, enhancements and features to give you a completely new experience. Right from the welcome screen, the application has new and improved data management capabilities, integrating CAM feature along with some other innovative functionalities making it again your best design partner.

Pen and Touch-Enabled Devices: The application supports new touch-enabled capabilities. This is one of the most significant changes that came with SOLIDWORKS 2018. Now, you can make sketches using a touch-enabled pen. The application even supports customized mouse gestures making it more user-friendly and interesting to use.

Adding Granular Details: SOLIDWORKS 2018 has come up with new capabilities to work with assemblies such as Adding Mates Between Hidden Surfaces, Misaligned Mates, and Smart Explode Line Tool. The application has also introduced a new Tab and Slot feature for the sheet metal design. Now you can create the inspection documentation directly from 3D models.

CAM Integration: The most promising feature that SOLIDWORKS 2018 brought about is the CAM integration. The feature is called SOLIDWORKS CAM and works as a new application. The capability leverages CAM technology which is pretty interesting software in itself. Such integration will automate the entire manufacturing programming.

Enhancing the Complete Cycle: SOLIDWORKS 2018 comes with an integrated approach that works with your product right from design to manufacturing. This is done by putting the part or the assembly model in the Centre of the action. The concurrent collaboration capabilities of SOLIDWORKS 2018 keeps the data well managed so that you can create a design using manufacturing strategy across the product development workflow.

Ease in CNC Programming: The application has come up with new part and assembly machining, a 2.5 axis milling, and two-axis turning features. Such a feature is capable to make CNC (computer numerical control) programming less time consuming and simple.

Automating the Manual Inspection Process: The revised version of SOLIDWORKS has automated inspection capabilities. This feature helps you to save time skipping the manual inspection process. Dassault now claims that the 2018 version can carry out the article inspection process and generate reports in minutes.

Dealing with the corrupted files: If your repair attempts fail to resolve a corrupted file, SOLIDWORKS 2018 now prompts you to extract your geometrical details if data about the body is still intact. You can use this extracted data to create a new model.

Four Key Advanced Manufacturing Technologies Used in Aerospace

Advanced Manufacturing technologies have become one of the most important parts of the Aerospace industry. This is because of the unique challenges that the aircraft designers deal with. The aircraft designs need to consider the environmental conditions using strong materials that are both lightweight and temperature resistant. Such designs require micro and Nano- machining techniques. Here are four advanced machining technologies that are used in the Aerospace industry.

Additive Manufacturing  

The Aerospace industry was quick to identify the benefits and potential of Additive Manufacturing to design its planes. The technology uses Power-Bed laser printing systems to build its most components. Additive manufacturing technology is used to build structures that work within the fuselage with features such as reduced weight and reduce heat. An additive manufacturing technique, commonly known as the Fused Deposition Modeling, is used to create semi-hollow parts of the aircraft wings by both adding strength and reducing weight.

Composite Materials

Composite materials are widely used to design aircraft. Aerospace engineers prefer using these materials because of their favorable characteristics of flexibility, strength, temperature and chemical resistance. Composite materials and advanced polymers in the design help to improve performance and reduce lifecycle costs. These materials also reduce the overall weight of the aircraft cutting short their fuel consumption and carbon emissions.

Robotics

Robots are used in the aerospace industry to manage the labor-intensive process, particularly when lifting and handling tasks are to be done. The industry is using powerful robots in its manufacturing plants to move and join aircraft parts. Robotics is also taking care of manufacturing process that is hazardous to people such as painting and welding.

Laser Beam Welding

This technology offers rapid and high precision work as compared to the traditional welding techniques. Laser welding is, therefore, a preferred solution for handling materials when repeatability and high accuracy is required. The most advantageous property of this technique is that it transfers very little heat to the material that is welded. This way it does not create a heat affected zone around the weld, ultimately not compromising the strength and performance of the material.

With the widespread use of these technologies, the aerospace industry has also inspired several other industries to use these technologies in the manufacturing process. These techniques have undoubtedly simplified the manufacturing processes and reduced costs to a greater extent. Their accuracy and precision have reduced the number of failure points in the manufacturing process.

Engineering Graduate looking for a job Here are most promising CAD Courses.

Choosing a career in any stream of education is a top-notch decision or can be categorized as a brainstorming session. In order to make a right decision for life, it is essential to study diverse industry aspects and related scope of development. Many students get confused about their career after completing their education and especially, after completion of engineering.

 

It is entirely the choice of an individual to select a field as per the interest and ability. Though jobs are available for engineers in various sectors but pursuing a CAD course opens the gateway for better job opportunities. Many engineering professionals and firms are using CAD software on a large scale, therefore, making it essential to learn them.

 

Have a look at the most promising CAD software modules and their scope outlined below!

Mechanical CAD Software Courses

CAD skills help engineers to find employment and increase productivity if they master in the software products. Some of them are:

  • AutoCAD
  • Creo
  • Inventor
  • Siemens NX
  • CATIA

Electrical CAD Software Courses

For an engineer, CAD software can save time and reduce errors while enhancing design communication. Sharpen your skills with the listed CAD software:

  • AutoCAD
  • ZW3D
  • CATIA
  • PTC Creo
  • Rhino

Architectural Design CAD Software Courses

CAD software will enable architects to draw an intelligent 3D model that helps to efficiently plan, design, construct and manage infrastructure. Listed below are a few CAD software tools for architects and engineers:

  • AutoCAD
  • 3Ds Max
  • Microsoft Project

Building Design CAD Software Courses

CAD tools are significant in making home design, interior making, and kitchen and bath design. With CAD, it becomes easy to identify design flaws and point out serious build problems.

  • AutoCAD
  • Civil 3D
  • 3Ds Max
  • ArchiCAD
  • Revit

Structural Design CAD Software Courses

CAD helps designers to easily outline designs, gather data, draw systematic sketches, helps in performing documentation and project report generation. Students can appear for these courses as listed below:

  • AutoCAD
  • ETABS
  • AutoCAD Structural Detailing
  • Pro
  • SAP2000 v18

Land Survey and Transportation Design CAD Software Courses

CAD helps surveyors to enhance the design process for visualization and provide stakeholders to undergo better understanding of a site. For land surveyors and road designers, following are suitable CAD courses:

  • MX Road
  • AutoCAD Civil 3D