Events

Explore what embedded engineers and developers need to know to implement quantum-resistant cryptographic algorithms effectively.

This talk will present the journey from traditional methods to new technologies and discuss the challenges in getting from scientific theory to a product that navies can use. 

During the 1930s, with the London Naval Treaty of 1930 placing limitations on heavy cruiser warship construction and characteristics, the US, Japanese and British navies attempted to circumvent the restrictions on heavy cruiser construction by building light cruisers (vessels with an armament no heavier than 6.1in / 155mm) of similar size and fighting power to conventional heavy cruisers with 8in artillery. In Britain, this resulted first in the 10 Town class vessels, and latterly the reduced Fiji (aka Crown Colony) and Minotaur classes, built to fulfill the obligations of the Second London Naval Treaty of 1936.

This presentation proposes some results on observer design and methods of fault detection filter synthesis for a class of nonlinear systems.

Point to point microwave radio systems have been in operation since the 1940s however in today’s world of fibre and satellite communications these fixed radio links often go unmentioned, despite their significant usage.

The speaker, Mike Flynn, is an experienced ex RAF fighter pilot, who was probably destined to fly the TSR2. This was not to be and Mike will give his personal view on the various factors that led up to the controversial cancellation in 1965 of, arguably, the most advanced strike aircraft of its time – cost, performance, innovation, politics, in-fighting, opposing cultures, information, disinformation, missing information, speculation. Mike will discuss what is known about the unprecedented decision to order the breaking up of the prototypes, the destruction of the drawings, tooling & jigs? And why did some airframes survive?

For human space missions that extend beyond one or two years, resupply of large volumes and masses of food, water, and atmospheric gases becomes unrealistic. Therefore, long-duration future habitation of space will require bioregenerative life-support systems in which plants could play key roles, including atmosphere regeneration, wastewater recycling and food production. The use of in situ regolith as a seed germination and plant growth substrate may have several advantages over hydroponic systems, such as the immediate bioavailability of plant essential ions, low-tech mechanical support for plants, and easy access to in situ materials once on the surface. Since plants may play several key roles in long-term life support systems on the Moon or Mars, it is crucial to know how plant seeds should be stored and transported across space before being germinated and grown in such systems.

The government has mandated that every household in Great Britain will be offered a smart meter by 2020. The talk will cover what led to this decision and what benefits the customer gain by having them fitted. It will cover the technology employed and why there are two generations of meter, why customers cannot switch energy supplier with the first generation and why the second generation is years behind schedule. It will also cover the issues of data privacy and cyber security, the risks to critical national infrastructure associated with the roll out of the first generation smart meters and how these issues have been mitigated in other countries.