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The nature of intellectual property is changing. For designers, scientists and engineers, innovation can have widely different meanings, from a novel way to combine carbon atoms into a molecule for the pharmaceutical industry, to a control algorithm for an interplanetary spacecraft. Once, the concepts of novelty and innovation were simply defined in legal terms, and the methods for protecting innovation were clearly defined.

Today, it’s more complicated. Not only is the concept of innovation more nuanced, but the very nature of information is also in play. How much of a human genome is patentable? How much of a copywritten algorithm is defensible? Can artificial intelligence be assigned a patent? The stakes and never been higher, and the difficulties in keeping proprietary information away from competitors, have never been more challenging.

Joining engineering.com on this episode of The Engineering Roundtable are four experts to discuss this complex topic.

Panelists:

Jim Durkin, Managing Director, Product Management, IP.com
Ameet Bhattacharya, CTO, IP.com
Joe Manico, Research Scientist, Kodak Moments
Elle Gahl, President & CEO, Shadow Ridge Analytics

Moderator:

Jim Anderton, Multimedia Content Director, engineering.com

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To learn more about IP.com and their AI solutions for innovation, contact sales@ip.com or visit https://ip.com.

The post IP is Changing in the Age of AI  appeared first on Engineering.com.

The space launch industry in the 21^st century has been characterized by a shift away from traditional, large aerospace companies to smaller startup firms. Light and medium lift to low earth orbit is widely believed to be a huge growth opportunity in mid-century, if costs can be kept under control.

Reusability is widely believed to be the key to low cost, and a new entrant, Stoke Space, is developing a medium lift launch system called Nova which promises to compete with the SpaceX Falcon 9 system, with full reusability and rapid vehicle turnaround. Nova is being developed with advanced technologies, especially in the second stage, including a regeneratively cooled metallic heatshield, and a propulsion system that takes advantage of aerospike principles. 

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The post A new SpaceX competitor goes for the medium lift orbital market appeared first on Engineering.com.

This episode is brought to you by Dell Technologies.

The digital twin is perhaps the most important development in computer-aided design since digital rendering. It’s more than a way to digitally represent products and the processes that make them, it’s a parallel engineering world, a place where what if scenarios and experiments can be performed to optimize designs and processes. Digital twin is not only a tool that speeds development in engineering, it’s a vital element of engineering risk management, a way to try things that would be unthinkable in the physical world, with the possibility of a high-value payoff.

Artificial intelligence can offer similar benefits to engineering processes, and is already a critical tool to aid in decision-making. What happens at the confluence of these two important technologies? What are the implications of artificial intelligence operating through the digital twin to change the engineering process?

Joining engineering.com on this episode of The Engineering Roundtable are three experts to discuss these implications:

Panelists:

Todd Edmunds, Global CTO Smart Manufacturing, Edge & Digital Twins, Dell Technologies Global Industries
Jason Nassar, Senior Consultant, Product Management, Dell Technologies Edge Solutions
Pieter Van Schalkwyk, CEO of  XMPro

Moderator:

Jim Anderton, Multimedia Content Director, engineering.com

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Dell Technologies can support your digital transformation efforts. Sign up for a free consultation with Dell experts to see how Digital Twins can enhance your AI infrastructure management.

Want to learn more? Watch Dell Technologies’ Industrial Digital Twin demo video on YouTube.

The post Revolutionizing Industry 4.0: Scaling Digital Transformation with AI & Digital Twins appeared first on Engineering.com.

Industrial robots and their end effectors have demonstrated a remarkable dexterity, matching and often exceeding that of human hands. Combined with vision systems, many industrial robots can combine high-level dexterity with object recognition for pick and place applications, but most industrial systems, the things that robots manipulate are consistent in size and shape.

The food processing industry has a very different problem: individual portions of things like fish fillets are similar, but no two are alike. The technology however is rapidly improving, and modern systems can now handle complex food processing tasks that until recently have resisted automation. 

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Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

The post Why fish filets show how robotics is the future of work  appeared first on Engineering.com.

3D printing, or additive manufacturing as it’s known in the industry, have revolutionized warfare, as seen in the current Ukraine Russia war. The ability to mass-produce first-person view drones in the thousands has created a new battlefield, where traditional doctrines about armor and logistics have been changed forever. Not only do the drones make attacking armies more vulnerable, additive manufacturing allows production to be extensively decentralized, making it much harder for adversaries to degrade production capability.

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The post Additive manufacturing: Game changer in Ukraine? appeared first on Engineering.com.

Battery technology is long been understood as the limiting factor in electric vehicle adoption worldwide. Electric vehicle batteries need to be lower in cost, offer higher energy density, and be faster to charge than current technology allows, and all major automakers are working to achieve this.

A new solid-state lithium-based design from Factorial, backed by Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis, promises to increase electric vehicle range by up to 80%, with lower operating temperatures and increased safety. Test cells have already been produced, and factorial has built a full-scale production facility just outside Boston. Widespread implementation should be ready by the end of the decade. 

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Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

The post Is the Solid-State Battery the Solution for Weak EV Sales?  appeared first on Engineering.com.

The Scaled Composites Vanguard has taken to the air, and like most designs from Northrop Grumman’s experimental division, it’s different. Small, light in weight and powered by a relatively low power jet engine, the aircraft has the look of a miniature stealth fighter plane, and can carry 2,000 pounds of ordnance, including two air to air missiles in an enclosed weapons bay. The airplane is clearly designed to have a low radar cross-section, essential for survival in any contested airspace today.

For Northrop Grumman, this may be a replay of the company’s low-cost, lightweight fighter concept, a big hit from the early 1960s: the F-5 Freedom Fighter. 

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The post Scaled Composites’ Vanguard makes its first flight  appeared first on Engineering.com.

This video is brought to you by Dassault Systèmes.

To achieve success in manufacturing today, professionals must synchronize the application of capital, labor and equipment in a sort of industrial ballet, where the competing requirements of time, cost and speed are calculated and recalculated on a real-time basis. To get great outcomes, manufacturing processes must be planned carefully, and to stay successful, manufacturers most aggregate, analyze and act on multiple data sets generated by manufacturing processes and by the products themselves.

Knowing what to do with that data, and how to analyze it to generate actionable insight requires tools as complex as the production equipment itself. Simulation to model what if scenarios is now standard, and artificial intelligence is expected to make rapid inroads in manufacturing, and today everyone is talking about the digital twin. But that twin is not the end goal, it’s actually the starting place.

Jim Anderton discusses where manufacturers need to go once they leave that starting line with Mike Buchli,  3DEXPERIENCE WORKS manufacturing expert at Dassault Systèmes.  

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Learn more about how small and medium sized businesses can start benefiting from robotics automation that large enterprises have long enjoyed.

The post Digital transformation is the starting point for the manufacturing marathon appeared first on Engineering.com.

Artificial intelligence is not only widely anticipated but is expected to dramatically change the manufacturing landscape worldwide, forever.

The promise is huge, but to deliver on that promise, manufacturers need to develop coherent strategies for implementation, and more importantly, understand where the use cases exist for AI implementation.

New research from AI software provider IFS suggests that American firms are sceptical of artificial intelligence in its current form.

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Access all episodes of This Week in Engineering on engineering.com TV along with all of our other series.

The post Manufacturing AI will struggle without focus appeared first on Engineering.com.

Orbital launch services are the key to the commercial development of space. Crude flight gets the headlines, but the vast majority of launches carry communications and Earth resources satellites, and of course, military applications.

But are there too many players in the market? Space X is in the low-cost launcher, but their major market is internal, with Starlink. And with the upcoming retirement of the ISS, the market for crewed flight is uncertain. The market may bifurcate into:
(1) fewer, heavy launch providers; and
(2) multiple small sat launchers with fast reaction capability.

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Access all episodes of End of the Line on Engineering TV along with all of our other series.

The post Are there too many space launch providers?  appeared first on Engineering.com.