Category: Technology

Satellites, Radar and The Electrical Engineer

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         Satellite and Radar design has a huge potential in this information era, where every technological giant is keenly involved in gaining more information through satellites. Giants such as Google, Facebook, and SpaceX need to expand their internet connection and hence are planning to launch many satellites. Google plans to invest around $1 billion in launching satellites. On the other hand, SpaceX aims at launching low-Earth orbit satellites.

The State of Satellite

 

Russia created history by launching the first satellite “Sputnik 1” in 1957. Today, more than 50 countries own their own satellites. There are a total of 1100 active and 2600 inactive satellites today. Among these 50% of them are in low-earth orbit (260 miles high), 20% are in medium orbit (13,000 miles high), and high orbit (22,236 miles), and 10% are in geosynchronous orbit (22,240 miles high). These satellites serve a lot of purposes including weather, navigation, and much more.

 

Weather Satellite: They send images of weather fronts and the changes that the environment faces.

Navigation Satellite: They calculate the location based time and signal distance using GPS and other navigation systems.

Communication Satellite: They connect remote areas and carry communication traffic.

Astronomical Satellite: They study about the universe.

Radar Satellites: The satellites are used for imaging the earth’s surface with the help of Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). The changes in the images of the same area are detected with the help of radar interferometry. The images of radar satellite can be extremely sharp.

 

The Future of Satellites

 

 

Pseudo- Satellites: High Altitude Aircraft with satellite abilities will be the future of satellites. The Zephyr, a pseudo-satellite flies at 70,000 feet during the day and 50,000 during the night. It runs with solar power and hovers over the same spot for an indefinite time.

 

Nanosats: Lightweight Satellites with small components similar to a smartphone will also rule the future. They have limited capability, but are cost-friendly.

 

Electrical Propulsion: They are used to keep the satellites in their orbit.

 

Electrical Engineer and Satellites

 

For a successful growth and innovation of satellites, an electrical engineer plays a very important role. A few firms are hiring 200-500 new employees and expanding their staff count. In the next 15 years, approximately 1,600 satellites are expected to get launched. These launches would give new opportunities to the engineers. Around 44,100 electrical engineering job openings are projected before 2022.

Meet the Indian Teen and his Invention, Kalamsat – Smallest Satellite for NASA

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India again broke a global space record by launching world’s lightest satellite weighing 64 grams, called Kalamsat, developed by 18-year-old Tamil Nadu student Rifath Sharook and his team.

Named after former Indian President, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Azad, Kalamsat was the only Indian payload in the mission. A NASA sounding rocket flew the tiny satellite, and the lift-off was from the space agency’s Wallop Island around 3 PM (IST).

In conversation with Mission Director, Srimathy Kesan, she said that the total flight time of Rocket was 240 minutes and Kalamsat got separated from the rocket in 125 minutes after lift-off. While learning about the satellite’s post-launch, we also came to know that it fell into the sea. After recovering, NASA will send it back to the team for decoding the data.

Specification of the “Tiny Satellite”

  • It can be held in one’s palm as it is 3.8cm cube.
  • The structure is 3D printed with reinforced carbon fiber polymer.
  • It is equipped with a nano Geiger-Muller for measuring radiations in the space.

The incredible achievement makes us believe that Space is not unreachable and has no boundaries, therefore, let us all do research and conquer the Mars soon.

Ransomware, Digital India and the Growing Cyber Threats

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The latest ransomware attack “WannaCry” has become a horror for most of the organization and countries. Looking at the speed at which it has spread has in fact raised questions on cybersecurity. Especially in countries like India where the nation is moving towards digitization through initiatives like “Digital India”, this attack has raised doubts on the safety of digital transactions.

With a strong motive to create a cashless economy, the shift towards digital payments has already increased significantly in India. In a survey, around 88% of the respondents showed their willingness to make use of digital payments and 48% were already using it for more than 75% of their transaction. However, all of them were concerned about the security, especially in the end devices. As more number of users is shifting towards digital payments, the chances to security risks such as online fraud and information theft are also increasing. Tax and advisory service provider point out the lack of awareness and poor digital payment ecosystem as a reason for online fraud and virus attacks.

Addressing the issues, there is a requirement of regulatory framework, foolproof security measures, convenience and immediate settlements to ensure long-term success for digital payments.

ANSYS 18 Release Focuses on Digital Twin, IoT and Engineering Apps

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With the release of ANSYS 18, the computer-aided engineering is extending the journey towards Internet of things ( IoT) and digital twin. The next phase for ANSYS was made possible after collaborating with PTC ThingWorx and GE Predix that enables development of applications. Besides the release, the objective of manufacturers is to ensure that simulations go throughout the life-cycle of the product right from design, manufacturing, use, and end of life.

IoT and Digital Twin will make CAE widespread

Simulations are going ahead focusing towards the product development in the edging as well as into the operations. The collaboration with the two IoT platforms (PTC ThingWorx and GE Predix) was a right move as both the companies had a head start in the IoT market and hold a significant place in the engineering community for the CAE software. It is a good way to hedge your bets and integrate with the market winners to introduce ANSYS’ simulation technology.

 

Simulation Engineering Application Builder available for ANSYS Users

Simulation Engineering apps are yet another way to branch out for the design cycle. ANSYS 18 comes packaged with the application building software, which is taken into use for creation of simulation engineering apps. Additionally, consultants and engineers can sell and share the apps to clients via ANSYS app store. Besides share and sell feature, customizing usage and limiting deployment for a specific project is also possible.

 

Extending the Scope of ANSYS AIM              

The new release has extended the capabilities of AIM with the upcoming of ANSYS Fluent and Mechanical. Previously, AIM was a product with some feature gaps but has now expanded towards some broad applicability. These files are easily transferable into ANSYS flagship simulation software in a way that analysts can explore into physics of designs without starting from the scratch.

 

Technology Enhancements to ANSYS 18 Portfolio

Noted were a few material advancements in ANSYS Mechanical, Geological, Electronic, and Biological Simulations. As an example, engineers will soon be able to simulate material with variable properties. Apart from these, ANSYS portfolio will experience ANSYS CFD Enterprise offering a new package of fluid dynamics, ability to study antenna signals, ability to import electrical models based on chip profiles and UI enhancement in the portfolio as per the customer feedback.

As a company seizes the opportunities presented by new trends, ANSYS seems to undergo continuous development keeping the software to lead the world via pervasive engineering simulation.

3 E-Learning Technologies that Can Jumpstart the Training Programmes

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In this technological era, before getting used to one technology, the next one emerges. However, there are some things that remain the same such as e-learning. Most of the learning technologies have not yet evolved for a long time and finding the hottest solution for the same has become a challenge for the entrepreneurs. So the important question is

“How do we increase the effectiveness of learning through the latest technologies?”

The answer to this question includes three solutions that are not interactive and at the same time popular. They are games, videos, and mobile.

 

  1. Games
  2. Videos
  3. Mobile

 

Gamification

An industrial study found that about 75% of the people working today are “casual gamers.” Some giants such as IBM, Xerox, and Deloitte have taken initiatives to incorporate interactive e-learning. However, when looking for ROI, the implementation of such technology seems difficult due to the following issues

  • Development time
  • License fee
  • Usage and many other factors

The only way to overcome these issues is to leverage several elements of games. For example, achievement-based systems such as leader boards can encourage the learners to reach various certification levels. Thus, the issues of implementing “games” will resolve and at the same time learning will become fun and interactive.

Short Videos

The existence of videos is not new to anyone. Even the short videos have been in existence for the past ten years. The challenging part is adopting an instructional design in a video. Even today there are many videos that fail to adopt such design. There were several constraints while creating a video which make implementation of instructional design difficult such as

  • Purpose
  • Quality
  • Cost

Usually, videos would just contain long lectures or a live event. These videos fail terribly as sitting for 30-60 minutes is not an option. These days people prefer videos that are

  • Short in length.
  • Engaging
  • To the point

Apart from on-job skills, the videos these days also focus on various professional development subjects. Additionally, videos have become even more professional to make them useful across departments.

 

Mobile Learning

The traditional classroom training and learning will always have its value. However, it fails when learners need to access information from anywhere anytime. The only solution for this problem is “mobile”. It is assumed that people will easily have access to the content through the web. However, it is not as easy as it looks from the outside.

5For example, most of the videos are not mobile optimized as they are flash based. There are many other issues but once these issues are covered there is no doubt that mobile learning is the best on-the-go training solution.

While these technologies have the power to change the game of e-learning, there are other technologies such as Big Data, VR and much more that might also have an effect on e-learning and training. However, these technologies will not be implemented unless any business need arises.