by Gary Mintchell | Mar 23, 2021 | Manufacturing IT, News, Organizations, Software
As our world in manufacturing technology moves ever more quickly into software, open-source software becomes more prominent. This news is significant given funding from Google and the amount of work going on at the Linux Foundation that is benefiting manufacturing.
Google and the Linux Foundation announced they are prioritizing funds to underwrite two full-time maintainers for Linux kernel security development, Gustavo Silva and Nathan Chancellor.
Silva and Chancellor’s exclusive focus is to maintain and improve kernel security and associated initiatives in order to ensure the world’s most pervasive open-source software project is sustainable for decades to come.
The Linux Foundation’s Open Source Security Foundation (OpenSSF) and the Laboratory for Innovation Science at Harvard(LISH) recently published an open source contributor survey report that identified a need for additional work on security in open source software, which includes the massively pervasive Linux operating system. Linux is fueled by more than 20,000 contributors and as of August 2020, one million commits. While there are thousands of Linux kernel developers, all of whom take security into consideration as the due course of their work, this contribution from Google to underwrite two full-time Linux security maintainers signals the importance of security in the ongoing sustainability of open-source software.
“At Google, security is always top of mind and we understand the critical role it plays to the sustainability of open-source software,” said Dan Lorenc, Staff Software Engineer, Google. “We’re honored to support the efforts of both Gustavo Silva and Nathan Chancellor as they work to enhance the security of the Linux kernel.”
Chancellor’s work will be focused on triaging and fixing all bugs found with Clang/LLVM compilers while working on establishing continuous integration systems to support this work ongoing. Once those aims are well-established, he plans to begin adding features and polish to the kernel using these compiler technologies. Chancellor has been working on the Linux kernel for four and a half years. Two years ago, Chancellor started contributing to mainline Linux under the ClangBuiltLinux project, which is a collaborative effort to get the Linux kernel building with Clang and LLVM compiler tools.
“I hope that more and more people will start to use the LLVM compiler infrastructure project and contribute fixes to it and the kernel – it will go a long way towards improving Linux security for everyone,” said Chancellor, Linux maintainer.
Gustavo Silva’s full-time Linux security work is currently dedicated to eliminating several classes of buffer overflows by transforming all instances of zero-length and one-element arrays into flexible-array members, which is the preferred and least error-prone mechanism to declare such variable-length types. Additionally, he is actively focusing on fixing bugs before they hit the mainline, while also proactively developing defense mechanisms that cut off whole classes of vulnerabilities. Silva sent his first kernel patch in 2010 and today is an active member of the Kernel Self Protection Project(KSPP). He is consistently one of the top five most active kernel developers since 2017 with more than 2,000 commits in mainline. Silva’s work has impacted 27 different stable trees, going all the way down to Linux v3.16.
“We are working towards building a high-quality kernel that is reliable, robust and more resistant to attack every time,” said Silva, Linux maintainer. “Through these efforts, we hope people, maintainers in particular, will recognize the importance of adopting changes that will make their code less prone to common errors.”
“Ensuring the security of the Linux kernel is extremely important as it’s a critical part of modern computing and infrastructure. It requires us all to assist in any way we can to ensure that it is sustainably secure,” said David A. Wheeler, the Linux Foundation. “We extend a special thanks to Google for underwriting Gustavo and Nathan’s Linux kernel security development work along with a thank you to all the maintainers, developers and organizations who have made the Linux kernel a collaborative global success.”
Funding Linux kernel security and development is a collaborative effort, supported by the world’s largest companies that depend on the Linux operating system. To support work like this, discussions are taking place in the Securing Critical Projects Working Group inside the OpenSSF.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 22, 2021 | Automation, News, Organizations, Robots
The superlatives and hyperbole in this press release masked a good idea—bringing robotic programming into the 21stCentury. “Pioneering the next frontier of manufacturing through a combination of artificial intelligence (AI) and industrial robotics,” proclaims the press release. The meat of the announcement—Symbio Robotics announced its official company launch armed with $30M and a goal of modernizing industrial manufacturing by breathing new life into existing industrial robots — making them faster, more capable and more flexible.
At the heart of Symbio’s strategy is the introduction of SymbioDCS, an industrial robotics middleware and python programming framework that radically simplifies the programming of industrial robots to make them far more intelligent. SymbioDCS enables robot programmers to leverage real-time sensor information and feedback from existing automation sensors in combination with advanced control software. As a result, industrial robots that are programmed and managed with SymbioDCS quickly learn and execute tasks — increasing efficiency, improving quality and reducing ergonomic hazards.
Symbio currently is working with Nissan Motor Corporation and Toyota in addition to other major companies.
The recent investment was led by ACMECapital, with participation from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Eclipse Ventures and The House Fund.
“Symbio is doing for manufacturing what Windows did for DOS. Existing industrial manufacturing robots run proprietary programming languages making them slow and cumbersome. Not only do these robots lack dexterity, they lack the intelligence to make them do what they need to do,” said Max Reynolds, Symbio CEO and co-founder. “Our technology is designed to fundamentally reframe these existing manufacturing pain points by utilizing the best practices of AI and human robot interaction. That’s what we believe will drive success.”
Symbio is focused on a different problem: building automation that enables the best of human-machine collaboration. Its framework is designed to support the programmers that are already working in these environments.
“Developers are humans too, so the human-machine collaboration paradigm should apply to them as well!” said Anca Dragan, Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (EECS), at UC Berkeley. “Instead of exclusively providing automation solutions, Symbio is also designing the tools that enable the developers and domain experts working in manufacturing to create their own automation solutions and easily adapt them to new tasks. To do this, they are building products that leverage AI strengths and human insight in a symbiotic way.”
Symbio’s focus is on providing generalized solutions that enable companies to adopt AI as a core competency, as opposed to the traditional automation approach, which is to provide a custom solution to a specific problem. This means that AI solutions will look very different because it’s not just about creating the automation, it’s about creating and providing the tools that empower teams to design their own solutions through the use of AI, and easily adapt to the task at hand.
“We’ve seen cars become much more complex and customized in the decades since the onset of industrial automation. Today’s automakers need more nimble and nuanced robotics to perform increasingly sophisticated assemblies,” said Greg Reichow, Partner at Eclipse Ventures and the former head of global manufacturing and automation engineering at Tesla. “Symbio provides the exact solution for forward-thinking manufacturers, through an AI-powered platform that combines advanced compute, sensing and precision-control software.”
The company’s framework runs on edge computing infrastructure through industrial networks to inform and instruct current factory systems to make final assembly tasks available that were never automated before. This allows, for the first time, the development of new sets of applications and programs that can inform and instruct current factory systems to perform more complex and dexterous tasks, in addition to improving automation that already exists like door, wheel and windshield assembly, fastening, welding and painting.
“We believe that tech-enabled automation is defining the modern economy. Symbio is on the leading edge of the shift toward an era of software-defined manufacturing where
intelligent, self-aware devices will be capable of automating even the most complex tasks like assembly. The company is taking a thoughtful approach and has proven that their technology works with some of the toughest customers possible, Automotive OEMs. We are excited to partner with the Symbio team as they scale across the automotive sector and beyond.” Hany Nada, Co-founder and Partner, ACME Capital.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 22, 2021 | Automation, News, Technology
Not my normal news item, but this has general interest for those interested in the latest developments in autonomous driving. Maybe in my lifetime…
NPS 500 Autonomous Sensing Platform, the Most Compact, AI-Powered, Ultra Long-Range System that Intelligently Fuses and Integrates LiDAR, Radar and Cameras
Disruptive New Technology Establishes New Standard for Transportation Safety –
New High Performance LiDAR of More than 500 Meter Range and Innovative Radar Technology to See Around Corners
Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS), a pioneer in autonomous sensing platforms, today emerged from stealth to launch NPS 500™, the safest and most reliable platform for autonomous vehicles that enables the industry to reach Zero Accidents Vision. NPS 500 is the world’s first all-in-one deeply integrated multi-model sensor system focused on Level 4/5 autonomy.
The radically new sensor-fused system precisely interconnects the NPS revolutionary solid-state MIMO LiDAR, super resolution SWAM radar and cameras to cooperatively detect and process 360° high resolution data giving vehicles the ability to prevent all accidents. The densely integrated sensor system enables vehicles to see around corners and over 500 meters of range with ultra-resolution accuracy together with highly adaptive frame rate. The NPS 500 breakthrough capabilities make it 10X more reliable than currently announced sensor solutions.
“LiDAR, radar and cameras will all play significant roles in creating the ideal autonomous driving platform and there is no question that tightly connected sensors with onboard data fusion for automated driving enables more functionalities,” said Pierrick Boulay, senior analyst at Yole Développement. “This direction is unique and is likely to succeed in a market that could reach $25B in 2025* for sensing and computing in both ADAS and robot vehicles.”
“Our goal to prevent all transportation accidents is the holy grail for autonomous vehicles,” said Behrooz Rezvani, founder and CEO of NPS. “We are the sensing system behind the Zero Accidents Platform for large volume deployment at affordable cost. Existing technologies are not sufficient to achieve this paradigm, so we created our own more powerful LiDAR and radar. Our AI-driven sensor-fusion system processes this ultra-high resolution data to create the safest and most reliable solution in the market today. The NPS 500 slashes time-to-market for autonomous vehicle manufacturers, while being the most cost-effective.”
NPS 500 Product Details
The NPS next generation precision-built, multi-modal sensor system is the industry’s most advance autonomous driving solution that addresses physics-based limitations of each sensory system. The NPS 500 enhances and combines the strengths of LiDAR, radar and cameras to create a platform that leverages the capabilities of each technology, while addressing today’s challenges of Level 4/5 autonomy, including:
- Cameras: Provide high resolution images, but lack depth information and depend on lighting conditions
- Radar: Measure velocity with great precision, but have lower resolution than LiDAR and are vulnerable to interference from other radars
- LiDAR: Provide super precision depth information, but its performance and reliability degrade in adversarial, weather and light conditions, and it can get occluded fairly easily
NPS 500 is the world’s first all-in-one deeply integrated multi-model sensor system focused on Level 4/5 autonomy.
Features:
- LiDAR: Revolutionary new solid-state MIMO-LiDARTM architecture doubles range to ≥ 500 meters with super resolution and adaptive multi-beam search
- Radar: New class of radar technology with 10X better detection reliability, simultaneous, multi-band 360° FoV, 70X better against other radar signal interference
- Software: First ever AI fusion technology to “see-around-the-corner”
- Chips: 650 Tb/s sensor-data processing on network of tightly connected custom signal processing chips
Benefits:
- Range ≥ 500 meters @ 10% reflectivity
- Doubling the reaction time currently available LiDAR
- Significant increase in sensor data reliability
- See-around-the-corner capabilities
- Anticipating pedestrian’s movement well before reaching cross section
- Detecting moving objects approaching intersections well in advance
- Built-in redundancy for maximum reliability in harsh environments, bad driving and tough terrains
- Low maintenance, automakers can efficiently rely on NPS sensors once the vehicles leave the dealership
- Multi-beam adaptive scan up to 100 FPS to detect and track subtle movements
- See thru occlusion
- Reduced time to market
- Cost effective
- Low CAPEX and OPEX for OEM customers
Pricing & Availability
Customers and partners may contact [email protected] for more information.
About Neural Propulsion Systems (NPS)
The NPS mission is to eliminate all transportation accidents to achieve the Zero Accidents Vision. Founded in 2017 by Silicon Valley luminaries, including entrepreneur Behrooz Rezvani, former Ikanos and Quantenna founder and CEO. NPS is delivering the world’s first all-in-one deeply integrated multi-model sensor system for Level 4/5 autonomy for large volume deployment at an affordable cost. Its flagship product NPS 500™ precisely interconnects the NPS revolutionary solid-state MIMO LiDARTM, super resolution SWAMTM radar and cameras to cooperatively detect and process 360° high resolution data. The densely integrated deep sensor-fusion system gives vehicles the ability to see around corners and over 500 meters away, making it 10X more reliable than competitors.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 22, 2021 | Business, News
The better path to providing more solutions to your customer these days includes bringing in partners rather than developing or acquiring your own additional technology. This news comes from Aspen Technology who is partnering with L&T Technology Services to provide cloud services for its aspenONE Engineering software.
LTTS will enable cloud migration and virtualization and provide end-to-end experience that can help engineers access applications securely and at scale
L&T Technology Services Limited, a global pure play engineering services company, has partnered with Aspen Technology Inc., a global leader in asset optimization software, to offer a complete suite of digital engineering solutions across global enterprises which will empower customers to optimize the performance of their assets and achieve operational excellence through cloud hosting and virtualization.
The partnership between LTTS and Aspen Technology will enable enterprises to “bring their own licenses” for AspenTech’s aspenONE Engineering software suite to be run via LTTS’ managed cloud. Supported software offerings are detailed here. This will help accelerate customers’ Industry 4.0 adoption and help them align rapidly with the changing market conditions. By offering AspenTech’s engineering desktop suite via cloud, capital-intensive organizations will improve on operational efficiency and boost margin by leveraging the speed and scale of cloud technologies. Furthermore, this collaboration will reduce the total cost of ownership and improve the customer’s business agility especially during uncertain and volatile market conditions.
As an AspenTech Managed Hosting partner, LTTS’ cloud engineering services will provide design, delivery and support for compute, storage and virtual network infrastructure in the cloud. As an AspenTech Implementation Service Provider, LTTS will also bring its proven digital engineering capabilities and domain expertise across the entire engineering and manufacturing life cycle to leverage artificial intelligence, machine learning, IoT services and analytics.
Antonio Pietri, President & CEO, Aspen Technology said, “The process manufacturing industry is undergoing a significant change as more companies take advantage of advanced technologies like AI, machine learning and the cloud to better operate their critical assets. Our partnership with LTTS is about giving our joint customers the capabilities they need to optimize their operations and improve their engineering capabilities, so we feel that this partnership will help process manufacturing companies accelerate their digital transformation journeys and adapt to changing conditions when needed.”
Amit Chadha Deputy CEO & Member of the Board, L&T Technology Services said, “As the world’s leading engineering R&D services provider, LTTS brings to the table conceptual engineering design, enhanced security features and digital tools that can facilitate remote and agile operations on the shopfloor. LTTS’ partnership with AspenTech will provide holistic, end-to-end solutions in delivering asset performance and enhancing operational efficiency. LTTS is excited to combine its engineering domain expertise across critical industries with AspenTech’s purpose-built software platforms to deliver higher returns over the entire asset lifecycle”.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 19, 2021 | Automation, Events, News
My last business trip was to the preview of Hannover Fair 2020. This year, Hannover Fair is once again digital (virtual). Companies are beginning to send previews of their stands and demonstrations. This one is from Festo. This company has some creative engineers who have done some cool things with pneumatics. This description of their 2021 Hannover Fair stand follows.
The Productivity Master, a modular demonstration system for personalized USB memory sticks from Festo, shows how automation technology will evolve along the value chain when combined with digitalization. The Productivity Master demonstration will be the centerpiece of the Festo exhibit at the upcoming Hannover Fair Digital Edition April 12-16.
Thanks to seamless connectivity, everything fits perfectly, from the mechanical and electrical systems to the intelligence. The Festo automation platform provides an integrated and practical system to link all Festo engineering tools, components, and solutions in hardware and software.
The demonstration shows how a plant can achieve a balance between mass production and individualization of a finished product. The electrical products, the axis mechanics, the electrics, and the software are planned as a complete automation platform with seamless connectivity.
With this consistency, users save a lot of time in their machines and systems – from planning to commissioning – and gain process reliability because everything fits together – Industry 4.0 included.
Cloud-based concept
For example, the Productivity Master uses a cloud-based concept for registering and storing customer data complying with data protection regulations. This allows USB sticks to be produced with a personalized design as well as personalized data content. Customers could do this from home via the Internet without having to enter further data from other people on the supplier side.
Customers can use the same concept to reduce labor costs and coordinate the process from the home office. Festo’s IoT gateway securely connects the machine to the cloud so that operators cannot only retrieve production data from the cloud, but also access the machine’s diagnostic data, even if they are sitting hundreds of miles away in their home office.
Mask production and vaccines
The pandemic year 2020 revealed just such a contrast between mass production and individualization or small series production in the examples of mask production and vaccine research. The latter is more focused on precise data collection. For mass production, however, it is crucial to be able to use remote diagnostics and maintenance tools to maintain machine uptime as long as possible while protecting operator health.
“It doesn’t matter if the product weighs a few ounces or more than 200 pounds – being a technology-neutral company, Festo has the product range to do this,” explained Nigel Dawson, Head of Business Development Electric Automation at Festo. “While the Productivity Master features a mix of pneumatic and electric automation, from flow sensors to servo drives, from pneumatic slide units to electric Cartesian robots, it is the way these products are connected that enables true digitalization.”
Seamless connectivity
By leveraging industry-standard networks such as EtherCAT, OPC-UA, IO Link, and MQTT, Festo can create a seamless data stream from individual sensors to remote IO, servo drives, controllers, and the cloud. “This technology-neutral approach has a major impact on energy efficiency and sustainability. We call this ‘seamless connectivity,’” added Dawson.
The Productivity Master was designed in record time utilizing Festo’s state-of-the-art unified engineering environment which includes project planning capabilities and management of digital twins. This allows designers and developers to work collaboratively worldwide. With the Festo Handling Guide Online HGO, users select and dimension 2D or 3D gantries in just three steps. For quick and easy programming, configuration, and commissioning in a shared virtual environment, they use the Festo Automation Suite.
Digital Customer Journey
“Along the journey to digitalization, we enable customers to correctly and efficiently select and size products online, add them to a shopping cart in a seamless process, view pricing and delivery in real time, and track products throughout the supply chain,” said Dawson, describing this digital value chain. “With developments in artificial intelligence (AI), Festo is expanding concepts such as digital nameplates, digital twinning and, of course, AI-driven predictions of machine conditions for remote maintenance.”
Four fully connected stations
In a show setting, attendees create the production order at the first station by registering with their name and perhaps a picture. A QR code identifies the visitors at the machine. A vision sensor SBSI from Festo registers the visitor and starts the production order, followed by stock management. This mechatronic complete solution, made up among other things of a planar surface gantry EXCM in size 40 for fast picking and placing of the USB memory stick, offers all the options from stock management and workpiece handling to the cloud.
The USB memory stick is transported, printed, turned over, and then passed on. The work steps at the second station involve holding, moving, handling, rotating, positioning, and identifying the workpiece position as well as identifying, separating, gripping, and applying labels. Fast transfer to a label printer is carried out at station 3 by a highly dynamic linear gantry EXCT with dynamic servo motors EMMT-AS and servo drives CMMT-AS. The rotation functions are performed by electric rotary drives ERMH.
The process is completed in station 4, where files are uploaded to the USB memory stick. Station 4 operations include holding the workpiece, turning, and carefully positioning the cap and press-fitting delicate parts. This is done using the attractively priced electric cylinders EPCO and rotary drives ERMO.
by Gary Mintchell | Mar 19, 2021 | News, Organizations
I wrote about Element Analytics earlier this month. The company has a unique take of breaking through data silos between the various departments of a manufacturing organization. It announced this month the appointment of Vasu Jakkal to its Board of Directors. Jakkal serves as Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance and Identity Marketing at Microsoft. She will serve as an independent board member.
“We are pleased to welcome Vasu Jakkal to our Board of Directors,” said Andy Bane, CEO of Element. “Her deep industry knowledge, specifically in the software, industrial IoT, and semiconductor industries, combined with her leadership at leading companies like Intel, Microsoft, FireEye and Brocade will be invaluable as we accelerate into this next stage of growth and broaden our reach in the asset intensive process and infrastructure industries.”
In her current role at Microsoft, Jakkal leads the team responsible for security, compliance and identity business and marketing, working closely with the CEO and senior leadership team, as well as all departments, to drive the company’s security strategy and business growth. As part of this she oversees the overall strategy, go-to market execution and her team collaborates closely with engineering to help shape product strategy and roadmaps.
Prior to Microsoft, Jakkal served as Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at FireEye, where she led global marketing and communications including brand, demand, product, field, and partner. Earlier in her career, she held several leadership positions at Intel, Brocade and LSI Corporation across strategy, marketing, and general management. She is passionate about technology and inspired by purpose-driven businesses to help people live their possibilities. Jakkal is a member of FirstBoard.io and Athena Alliance, who are dedicated to increasing female representation in top ranks of leadership and corporate boards.
“It’s an honor to join Element’s Board of Directors at a time when organizations must digitally-enable their operations and are realizing how crucial successful IT/OT convergence is in this process,” said Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President of Security, Compliance and Identity at Microsoft. “I am inspired by Element’s vision and look forward to diving right in to help Element serve its customers, expand its reach and accelerate its momentum globally.”
The announcement follows the company’s recently unveiled Element Unify software solution which is designed to align data across information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) to enable digitally-enabled operations for the rapidly expanding industrial IoT market.
