GTT Communications, Inc. (NYSE:GTT), the leading global cloud networking provider to multinational clients, announced today that the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) has presented Mr. H. Brian Thompson, GTT's founder and executive chairman of the board, with its annual CQR Chairman's Award. Click here for more.
The Navis Bluetracker monitoring and reporting software has been declared "MRV Ready," following a Validation GAP Analysis Audit conducted by the classification society DNV GL. According to the validation report, the Bluetracker MRV module supports three of the prescribed four monitoring methods and collects all MRV-relevant data. The module is able to relay details of CO2 emissions as well as other data relevant to reporting, thus enabling a simple data exchange between various applications. In doing so, Bluetracker MRV meets the requirements of the new EU MRV regulations both in combination with the system's own Bluetracker Manual Reporting solution or with an external reporting system integrated via an API interface. Click here for more.
Aspect Software, a global provider of fully-integrated consumer engagement, workforce optimization and self-service solutions, today announced the winners of the third annual ACE Awards, recognizing and celebrating customer organizations achieving outstanding success with Aspect technologies. In each category, winners were presented an ACE Award for their ability to provide amazing customer experiences or realize substantial organizational efficiencies in their deployment and application of an Aspect solution. Click here for more.
Gill Pratt, chief of the Toyota Research Institute, told the U.S. Committee on Energy and Commerce in March that self-driving cars would require billions of miles of testing. But not every mile would be on actual roads.
To save the time and money needed to do that, companies have increasingly turned to so-called hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) equipment for testing automotive parts like cameras and radar, as well as virtual driving software to validate electronic control units for collision avoidance and other advanced safety systems.
With HIL systems, engineers can send electrical pulses into radar systems, for instance, as if they had been reflected from cars and other objects. The signals can also be injected into ignition, braking, and infotainment throughout the design and production process, allowing an endless number of tests on what breaks the system.
The automotive industry has used HIL for decades, but the tests have taken off with the growing complexity of advanced safety systems, experts said at National Instruments’ NI Week conference last week. Paired with virtual driving software, engineers can test collision avoidance and automatic braking functions for millions of miles without stepping foot in a vehicle.
“It’s like taking and replaying a video,” said Sam Dieck, a staff digital hardware engineer at test equipment maker National Instruments, which sells prototyping machines as well as software tools under the brand Veristand for acquiring signals from automotive parts and testing the parts with HIL systems.
These tests are increasingly vital, experts said. The flow of information inside vehicles is growing more complex. For instance, a front-facing camera will pool data with other sensors like radar to improve collision avoidance systems, while other sensors will convey engine diagnostics to the car’s dashboard display.
These systems are also constantly changing, said Derek O’Dea, measurement equipment and tools development manager at automotive supplier Valeo. To develop an automatic braking system, the company injects data from actual road tests into HIL equipment, where engineers can refine the code before pumping it into an electronic control unit. That approach, he said, lets Valeo reuse around four-fifths of the code in future hardware.
But many companies have started using more than mere signals for testing. IPG Automotive, which sells virtual driving software, says it has licensing deals with every major automotive equipment maker. Waymo, the autonomous carmaker that split off from Google, said in a January report that its software can simulate more than 3 million miles of driving each day.
In computer simulations, entire vehicles can be studied without incurring the costs or exposing drivers to the dangers of road testing. Using software, “we have all these components embedded in a virtual prototype, so we can test the entire system [over and over again],” said Raphael Pfeffer, IPG Automotive’s product manager for test systems, in an NI Week presentation.
IPG’s Carmaker software looks like a video game, but it comes with virtual hazards not only risky for actual road testing but also extremely tricky for self-driving cars. These include crosswalks clogged with pedestrians, multiple cars running red lights at a four-way intersection, people using wheelchairs or walkers, or joggers jumping into the road.
With IPG’s prototyping tools, developers can deploy these virtual tests at will. The software, which can model all the components inside cars, trucks, and motorcycles as well as drivers, is also compatible with three-dimensional maps from companies like Here, allowing engineers to test how vehicles navigate actual locales.
Other simulators aim for full immersion. Last year, researchers opened a simulator at the University of Warwick in England to house an actual vehicle, where physical prototypes can be tested without hitting the road. A screen completely surrounds the vehicle, projecting 30 miles of virtual road built from images of the nearby city of Coventry, said Gunwant Dhadyalla, a principal engineer at the University of Warwick.
The vehicle contains actuators to simulate acceleration, braking, or stumbling into a pothole. Earlier this year, Paul Jennings, head of experimental engineering at Warwick, told The Economist that the machine could simulate hundreds of sunrises and sunsets in a single day to improve antiglare cameras too dangerous to test in safety systems on public roads.
“There is no good way to inject errors into safety systems while you are on the road,” said Michael Konrad, chief executive of test system designer Konrad Technologies, which has partnered with other hardware-in-the-loop firms to devise virtual tests that run the gamut of advanced driver assist systems, from vehicle communications to sensor fusion.
Many researchers have turned to actual video games to test decision-making algorithms. Last year, researchers from Intel Labs started writing self-driving code for the cars in Grand Theft Auto 5, putting a vehicle through its paces with the traffic, pedestrians, rain, and other obstacles in the fictional city of Los Santos.
Though hardware-in-the-loop equipment can inject erroneous signals into devices and virtual driving software can throw lots of complexity at self-driving cars, both types of testing are still tightly controlled. The open road provides the most realistic data, but “putting someone in an actual car should be the last line of testing,” said Quentin Smith, an applications engineer at National Instruments.
“It’s obvious we can’t do this without simulation,” said IPG Automotive’s Pfeffer.
andnbsp;At ATandamp;T1, we've invested more than $150 million in our Alaska wireless and wired networks during 2014-2016. These investments drive a wide range of upgrades to reliability, coverage, speed and overall performance for residents and businesses. They also improve critical services that support public safety and first responders. Click here for more.
Since the program was launched in June 2015, Smart and kind sponsors have donated TechnoCarts to 40 public schools in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. These schools serve about 10,000 kindergarten students. Individuals and organizations wanting to help spread the benefits of digital learning to more public schools may email TechnoCart@smart.com.ph for more information. Click here for more.
andnbsp;Telephone and Data Systems, Inc.andnbsp;(NYSE: TDS) announces James W. Butman , currently Chief Operating Officer (COO) at TDS Telecom, will succeed retiring TDS Telecom President and CEO, David A. Wittwer at the end of 2017. Wittwer will continue to serve as a member of the TDS Board of Directors. Click here for more.
Vorstellung neuer Lösungen für 10G Passive Optical Network (PON) und IP für mehr Netzwerkkapazität und neue Umsatzmöglichkeiten; Fachleute von Casa sprechen bei Diskussionen über Kabeltechnik der nächsten Generation Click here for more.
RALEIGH , N.C.andnbsp;andnbsp;Tata Consultancy Services, (TCS), (BSE: 532540, NSE: TCS) a leading global IT services, consulting and business solutions organization, today announced the launch of Engineering Environment as a Service, a cloud based framework developed on the Red Hat OpenStack Platform. The framework will help increase utilization of business resources, lower infrastructure footprint and reduce operational costs. Click here for more.
SMPlayer is a front-end for the mighty open source MPlayer. It comprises basic features like playing videos, DVDs, and VCDs to more advanced features like support for MPlayer filters and more. One of the most interesting features of SMPlayer: it remembers the settings of all files you play. So you start to watch a movie but you have to leave... ...
Smart Defrag provides you with you reliable disk defragmentation that gives you better PC performance with optimized hard drives. Smart Defrag is a free, light, and stable disk defragment tool, which will give your hard drives faster file loading and outstandingly better disk performance. The latest version of Smart Defrag (5) now has im...
AnyDesk is a popular Remote Desktop application that uses a new video codec, which is specifically designed for fresh looking graphical user interfaces. AnyDesk software is versatile, secure and lightweight. The software uses TLS1.2 encryption and both ends of the connection are cryptographically verified. AnyDesk is very lightweight and is cra...
Bitdefender Security Suite, is a full security suite that keeps you safe online. The application has numerous integral services included, such as antivirus, firewall, a USB drive immuniser, strong browsing and privacy tools, social networking protection, parental controls and a spam filter. KEY FEATURES INCLUDE Bitdefender Antivirus and Anti...
