Network security

Few applicationsplace more importance on verification, or prescribe more process guidance, than aviation. The FAA and its European equivalent, EASA, provide guidance using standards such as ARP4754 for aircraft systems and DO-178B for flight software. These standards are often used outside of civil aviation, in whole or in part, for applications including military aircraft and land vehicles. Adoption for UAV programs is rapidly growing because of the FAA’s recent decision to require UAS and OPA certification via FAA Order 8130.34A. UAV systems are heterogeneous, and not restricted just to flight software. Therefore, other standards are used such as DO-254 for hardware and DO-278 for ground and space software.

The impact of the new standards to UAV developers using model-based design is especially significant. Before describing this, an introduction to model-based design is appropriate.
Introduction to model-based design

With model-based design, UAV engineers develop and simulate system models comprised of hardware and software using block diagrams and state charts, as shown in Figures 1 and 2. They then automatically generate, deploy, and verify code on their embedded systems. With textual computation languages and block diagram model tools, one can generate code in C, C++, Verilog, and VHDL languages, enabling implementation on MCU, DSP[], FPGA[], and ASIC hardware. This lets system, software, and hardware engineers collaborate using the same tools and environment to develop, implement, and verify systems. Given their auto-nomous nature, UAV systems heavily employ closed-loop controls, making system modeling and closed-loop simulation, as shown in Figures 1 and 2, a natural fit.

Based on the survey results, this job satisfaction is tied to a number of factors. While salary is a leading factor, it is not the only factor. Like previous years, the feeling of accomplishment rated the highest, with solutions challenge, benefits, salary, pleasant work environment, good relationship with work colleagues, and job security also contributing factors. The top four most important benefits are health insurance (63.6%), pension plan/401K (47.7%), flexible working hours (40.5%), and paid time off (33.2%).

Again this year, we asked respondents to tell us if they were currently seeking new job opportunities. Those who are actively seeking new opportunities made up 8.0% of respondents and had an average annual salary of $98,166—about $8,000 less than the average. Passive job seekers made up 36.9% of respondents, whose average salary was slightly less than average at $104,103. Those not seeking new opportunities (55.1%) were making an above average salary of $109,809.

There is a message here for employers. If you are paying less than the industry average, you could very likely lose your engineers. Based on data from automation techies, a recruiting and contract staffing company based in Minnesota, there is a high demand forautomation professionals, and high-quality candidates are hard to find. When companies do find good candidates, the candidates typically have multiple offers on the table. If your company employs high-quality professionals, pay them well, or you may lose them.

When we asked respondents if their company has a hard time finding/hiring automationprofessionals, nearly 60% said “yes.” The job function that is hardest to fill, as identified by 61.9% of the respondents, is automation/control engineering. A distant second was instrumentation engineering (28.2%), followed by process engineering (17.1%).

There is nothing new here. We are in the middle of a skills shortage. By many estimates, we failed to train an entire generation of technical professionals. As the bar chart indicates, more than half (51%) of those surveyed said they will be retiring in the next 15 years.

Is there a silver lining? Many companies end up hiring retirees back to work as consultants, simply because they cannot find other employees with the necessary skills. It appears that the number of retirees who are willing to work after retirement is holding at 45.8% (exactly the same as last year). These respondents said they will retire in the next 10 years, but indicated they will continue to work part-time or offer consultingsolutions after retirement.

We asked our survey respondents to give us an idea of how the economy is affecting certain factors within their companies.Economic effects

For the majority of respondents (more than 60%), most of the factors like salary, bonuses, overtime, layoffs, and promotions remain unchanged. However, here are three positive signs within some companies:

35.4% indicated that hiring of new employees has increased.
32.2% indicate that salaries have increased.
24.8% indicate that overtime has increased.

Conclusion

If you made it to this part of the article, congratulations! As a reward, I would like to present you with the following recipe of how to achieve the highest salary:*

Get your B.S. degree (any type of engineering will do). An advanced degree will improve results.
Select an energy-related industry segment.
Select a large company, preferably one with 10,000 or more employees, and stay there for your entire career.
Get your professional engineering (P.E.) license.
Move into a management position where employees report to you.
Work more than 50 hours per week.
Blend in one spouse.
Add one or two children (optional).
Become a member of a prominent industry organization.
Allow ingredients to intermingle during your career.
*Editor’s note: results may vary depending on elevation.

refer to:http://www.automation.com/factors-that-affect-your-salary-what-you-need-to-know

For the most part, remote sites with critical equipment are located in places that are difficult to access due to long distances or harsh conditions. Accessing critical information, such as equipment health and operational data at these sites can be time-consuming and costly. Also, given today’s aging industrial infrastructures, monitoring and controlling the data within these sites is more critical than ever. In fact, we are beginning to witness the consequences of not updating and maintaining outdated networks, as demonstrated by recent explosions at gas pipelines and blackouts in major cities when parts of the electrical grids have gone down.

Keeping a closer eye on these infrastructures is necessary not only to prevent loss of revenue, but more importantly, loss of life. Unfortunately, however, networking with remote sites to proactively prevent equipment degradation is far from an easy task and may even require a four-hour helicopter ride. In order to proactively monitor and control remotely located assets, users must be able to access local sensor data. The most cost-effective and intelligent way to do this is through cellular automation.

“JAI has solid offerings on both sides of color, meaning single-chip Bayer filter color cameras and color cameras with three CCD sensors or more, including a four-line multispectral color camera that offers separate sensors for red, green, blue, and near infrared,” explains Steve Kinney, Director of Technical Pre-Sales and Support at JAI Inc., USA (San Jose, California).

When customers come to JAI to discuss a color application, Kinney starts by asking what sort of spatial accuracy the system needs versus color accuracy. “It also depends on data rate,” he adds. “If you need absolute color accuracy of less than 1%, then we usually look at a three-CCD prism camera solution. If spatial accuracy over a wide inspection area is more important, then a very-high-resolution single-chip Bayer camera may be better. If you need high speed, CMOS offers higher frame rates and multi-line sensors with NIR capability and is very effective for high-speed printing applications where colorimetry measurements are very important because NIR can help you judge between true black ink and black made by combining cyan-magenta-yellow inks. And for some printing applications, knowing the difference is important for quality purposes.”

refer to:http://www.visiononline.org/vision-resources-details.cfm/vision-resources/Is-Your-Machine-Vision-System-Color-Blind/content_id/4333

Staffing is also a challenge for these companies. With operations located in remote areas, it is difficult and costly to attract and retain a talented workforce. This leads to a high degree of staff turnover, which in turn drives up training costs. Moreover, in many disciplines, an aging workforce shrinks the available talent pool even further, and makes the need to leverage expertise more acute.

So, where do these industries go from here? Simply put – operating companies really have no choice but to leverage their human capital in a unified way across their assets in order to succeed in today’s market. Automobile organizations must adopt new thinking in order toSolutions in an increasingly complex and distributed environment.

refer to:

http://www.automation.com/business-transformation-through-remote-collaboration-optimization-and-operations

The concept of being able to remotely connect to a network anywhere in the world is not a new one. It has long been utilized in the IT world to prevent IT administrators from having to drive into work at 3 a.m. to fix a software automation.

The implications of a secure automation from anywhere in the world extend beyond nightmare troubleshooting scenarios, such as a remote PLC in the middle of a desert with only basic cellular coverage connecting to the primary information center (SCADA PC or database server) across the Internet. How is this accomplished in a secure, simple fashion?

The answer is the humble Virtual Private networking (VPN) connection, sometimes referred to as a VPN tunnel. This particular piece of technology allows two disparate networks separated by the cloud to connect to each other as though they are on the same local networking, albeit with a substantial penalty in connection speed. This penalty is not particularly relevant when passing small pieces of data, such as a SQL command or a Modbus function call. It is now even possible to send programs to PLCs and monitor visualizations of industrial networks across such tunnels. These capabilities allow for truly unparalleled possibilities.

VPNs are typically established between two pieces of network infrastructure, such as a commercial router and an industrial hardware VPN solution. Alternatively, software VPNs are available that would allow a PC to connect to the remote network. Software VPNs are particularly useful for the traveling technician, allowing remote troubleshooting to one customer’s site while at another site for long-term support. This sort of flexibility means that a technician can, quite literally, be in two places at once.

refer to:

http://www.automation.com/leveraging-it-technology-for-industrial-controls-applications