Airbus Experiments with More Control for Autopilot

 Airbus Experiments with More Control for Autopilot

BBC News

Shiona McCallum; Ashleigh Swan

June 19, 2023

French aerospace company Airbus' recently completed Project Dragonfly aimed to extend the scope of control of aircraft autopilot technology. The researchers experimented on an Airbus A350-1000 aircraft to enhance automatic landing, taxi assistance, and automated emergency diversion. The automatic emergency descent system assumes control of the aircraft’s descent and landing while identifying other aircraft, weather, and terrain if the pilots are incapacitated. The system can communicate with air traffic control using an artificial intelligence-generated voice via radio, and can provide the crew with audio alerts should the airplane encounter obstacles during taxiing, displaying the path to the runway and advising pilots on speed.  ... '

Microsoft Researchers Use ChatGPT to Control Robots, Drones

Seems very novel, but makes sense, pics at the link below, shows the approack,

Microsoft Researchers Use ChatGPT to Control Robots, Drones

PC Magazine, Michael Kan,  in PCMag, February 21, 2023

Microsoft scientists are controlling robots and aerial drones with OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot. The researchers used ChatGPT to simplify the process of programming software commands to guide the robots, because the artificial intelligence model was trained on massive datasets of human text. They initially outlined in a text prompt the various commands the model could use to control a given robot, which ChatGPT used to write the computer code for the robot. The researchers programmed ChatGPT to fly a drone and have it perform actions, as well as to control a robot arm to assemble the Microsoft logo from wooden blocks.

Full Article

Advanced Control of a Six-Qubit Quantum Processor in Silicon

 Advances in silicon spin .....

Advanced Control of a Six-Qubit Quantum Processor in Silicon

By QuTech, October 7, 2022

The research shows that it's possible to increase the silicon spin qubit count while keeping the same precision as for single qubits.

Researchers at QuTech, a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology and TNO, the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research, have developed a chip with six silicon-based spin qubits that operates with a low-error rate. The research is seen as a stepping stone for the development of scalable silicon-based quantum computers.

The researchers created an array of six "quantum dots" made of individual electrons spaced 90 nanometers apart. They controlled and measured the spin of the individual electrons and facilitated their interaction using microwave radiation, magnetic fields, and electric potentials. The work is described in Nature.

"In this research we push the envelope of the number of qubits in silicon, and achieve high initialization fidelities, high readout fidelities, high single-qubit gate fidelities, and high two-qubit state fidelities," says Lieven Vandersypen, QuTech's director of research. "What really stands out though is that we demonstrate all these characteristics together in one single experiment on a record number of qubits."

From QuTech

View Full Article    

Researchers Change Trajectory of Drones

 Better speeds and paths for drones via optimization.

Researchers Change Trajectory of Drones for the Better

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Aaron Seidlitz, October 20, 2022

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's Kris Hauser, Gao Tang, and Weidong Sun have improved unmanned aerial vehicles' ability to navigate around obstacles via multi-level optimization. Said Hauser, "The basic idea is that you can separately optimize the shape of the path and the speed along it, but since how fast you can fly depends on the shape of the path, these two components are intimately coupled. Our novel formulation treats this as a bilevel optimization problem, in which the speed optimization is nested inside the shape optimization as an inner subproblem." Hauser said experiments proved the method "is faster and significantly more numerically stable than optimizing both the shape and the speed simultaneously." .... '

What Data Does Facebook Have?

From Schneier, with considerable comment ....    From a Court Deposition: 

" .... Facebook’s stonewalling has been revealing on its own, providing variations on the same theme: It has amassed so much data on so many billions of people and organized it so confusingly that full transparency is impossible on a technical level. In the March 2022 hearing, Zarashaw and Steven Elia, a software engineering manager, described Facebook as a data-processing apparatus so complex that it defies understanding from within. The hearing amounted to two high-ranking engineers at one of the most powerful and resource-flush engineering outfits in history describing their product as an unknowable machine.  ...."

Control Electronics for Quantum Computers

 Controlling your Quantum Computing

Engineers Develop Control Electronics for Quantum Computers That Improve Performance, Cut Costs

FermiLab, April 29, 2022

The Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit developed by engineers at the U.S. Department of Energy's Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FermiLab) and the University of Chicago can enhance quantum computer performance while reducing control/readout electronics' cost. The researchers created a field-programmable gate array (FPGA)-based controller for quantum computing experiments, and reduced the size of an equipment rack to that of a single electronics board that can interoperate with many types of superconducting quantum bits (qubits). The radio frequency (RF) board and FPGA controller can control eight qubits in their simplest iteration, and combining all RF elements in one board increases operational speed and precision, allowing real-time feedback and error correction. ... ' 

On the Psychology of Panic Buying

 Good article here.   In Fortune.  There might be ways to integrate the notion of control in consumer decision making?  Never heard it mentioned in this way.

The psychology of panic buying: why we stockpile pasta, toilet paper and gas when we don't need it

in Fortune.

Whether we are packing the freezer full of microwavable meals or sitting in a long line for gas in London, our first question is probably a simple one: Why do we do this to ourselves? 

That question has felt like the backbeat of our days since the pandemic began. When the first hints of a fast-spreading contagion appeared in early 2020, people around the world greeted the news with an almost universal response: We bought toilet paper. Then we bought up hand sanitizer, masks, pasta and beans, gym equipment, lumber, video game consoles, even puppies.

Now, with an energy crisis gripping much of Europe and a labor squeeze wracking post-Brexit Britain in particular, so-called panic buying has moved into a new realm—one where it can be nearly impossible to tease apart the role and weight of disrupted supply chains and climate change feedback loops in rounds of frantic over-purchasing that seem to blend one into the next. Of course, whether we are packing the freezer full of microwavable meals or sitting in a long line for gas in London, our first question is likely not which of the intertwined causes is most to blame, but something much simpler: Why do we do this to ourselves?

Psychologists, as it turns out, have spent much of the past 18 months studying this question, mapping out what a typical stockpiler looks like and is motivated by; how governments can limit it (hint: they're not doing great); and why there's more of this to come in our future. But here's one surprising conclusion: Just because it's called "panic" buying doesn't mean we're actually being irrational.

The who and the why

When it comes to the archetypal extreme panic buyer, there are few hard-and-fast rules: Several studies have found they tend to be better off—because over-purchasing requires, well, money—and a U.K. study found they're more likely to have kids. Other studies, including one out of Singapore, found panic buyers are most likely to be motivated by fear, or be motivated by social pressure, as well as the perceived severity of the situation; age and gender didn't seem to be that indicative.  .... 

 ..... And a study  https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Fxlm0000883  from Australia earlier this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology posited that panic buying was a reaction to extreme uncertainty—suggesting it gave people an illusion of control, even when they would have been better off sticking with their usual approach. .... '

Watermarking Control Data for Safety from Hackers

Thoughtful and apparently simple idea.

Approach Could Protect Control Systems From Hackers
IEEE Spectrum
Michelle Hampson
March 26, 2020

Researchers at Siemens and Croatia’s University of Zagreb have developed a technique to more easily identify attacks against industrial control systems (ICS), like those used in the electric power grid, or to control traffic. The researchers applied the concept of "watermarking" data during transmission to ICS, in a manner that is broadly applicable without requiring details about the specific ICS. In such a scenario, when data is transmitted in real time over an unencrypted channel, it is accompanied by a specialized algorithm in the form of a recursive watermark (RWM) signal; any disruption to the RWM signal indicates an attack is underway. Said Siemens' Zhen Song, “If attackers change or delay the real-time channel signal a little bit, the algorithm can detect the suspicious event and raise alarms immediately."

More on Throttle vs Touchscreen Control

This came to my attention recently,  whats the best kind of basic mobility control?

The US Navy says no to touchscreens—maybe automakers should too
Overly complex touchscreen systems were blamed in recent NTSB report.

 By Jonathan M. Gitlin in Arstechnica .... ' 

Physical Throttles vs Touchscreen

Always Thoght there was something unnnatural about touchscreeen controls where there was a natural connection to the physical actions controlled.    Here seems to confirm that. 

Navy Reverting DDGs Back to Physical Throttles, After Fleet Rejects Touchscreen Controls
By: Megan Eckstein

SAN DIEGO – The Navy will begin reverting destroyers back to a physical throttle and traditional helm control system in the next 18 to 24 months, after the fleet overwhelmingly said they prefer mechanical controls to touchscreen systems in the aftermath of the fatal USS John S. McCain (DDG-56) collision.

The investigation into the collision showed that a touchscreen system that was complex and that sailors had been poorly trained to use contributed to a loss of control of the ship just before it crossed paths with a merchant ship in the Singapore Strait. After the Navy released a Comprehensive Review related to the McCain and the USS Fitzgerald (DDG-62) collisions, Naval Sea Systems Command conducted fleet surveys regarding some of the engineering recommendations, Program Executive Officer for Ships Rear Adm. Bill Galinis said.

“When we started getting the feedback from the fleet from the Comprehensive Review effort – it was SEA 21 (NAVSEA’s surface ship lifecycle management organization) that kind of took the lead on doing some fleet surveys and whatnot – it was really eye-opening. And it goes into the, in my mind, ‘just because you can doesn’t mean you should’ category. We really made the helm control system, specifically on the [DDG] 51 class, just overly complex, with the touch screens under glass and all this kind of stuff,” Galinis said during a keynote speech at the American Society of Naval Engineers’ annual Fleet Maintenance and Modernization Symposium.
“So as part of that, we actually stood up an organization within Team Ships to get after bridge commonality.” .... '

Learning from B2B Buying Process

From the Gartner Blog, a look at a B2B buying process, diagram at the link.  The process diagram   is very complex, very messy.  I have worked on many, many process models.    If we had found this in our interviews with decision makers we would have immediately looked to simplify.   Create  a simpler model.  Model a smaller amount of the process.  Mine the process to determine what is really happening in its operation.  Who does what, whats the data involved?  How are the results measured?    Include decision makers to verify changes.   There is always a simpler model with carefully controlled scope.

I do agree what they say later in their article that control is often not (easily) achievable.   But it can be strongly influenced via the design of the process model.

Check out the diagram at the link.

The Illusion of Control  by Hank Barnes  |
It’s great to be in control.   It creates more confidence and comfort.   But in B2B situations, control is rarely achievable.   There are too many people involved in buying and implementation.  There are too many sources of information.   The idea of the buying journey, and efforts to create journey maps, imply an expectation of control.  .... "