Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
A Successful Career in Engineering
(In Theory)
Tim Dehne
BSEE Rice University 1987
Senior VP of R&D
National Instruments
What do Michael Dell and Bill Gates
have in common?
Engineers = Leaders
• Fact: 17% of Fortune 500
CEO’s have a business
degree
•Fact: 20% have an
engineering degree
Source: US News and World Reports
Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
Why do 20% of Fortune 500 CEOs
have an engineering degree?
Leadership Traits of Engineers
•Intelligent
•Problem solvers
•Creative
•Persistent
•Thorough
•Logical
•Practical
What job functions need engineers?
•Product development
•Design validation
•Manufacturing
•Technical Sales
•Product Marketing
•Applications support
•Any role
Two Basic Paths in Product Development
• Technical Track
– Deep technical competence
– Mentor
– Tackle the hardest technical challenges
• Management Track
– Motivate people
– Streamline processes
– Make business decisions
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is
indistinguishable from magic."
Arthur C. Clarke
850 books
1 USB Memory Stick
4oz
2/3 of a ton
Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
In college you get your personal GPA
In industry you get a raise if you can
work on a team
Today’s Designs– Converging Complexity
Cellular
Phone
Navigation
CD+RW
PC/WWW/Email
PDA
Games
DVD+RW
Satellite Car
Alarm/Radio
AM/FM Stereo
Remote
Diagnostics
How do you get off to a great start?
• Stay on top of the latest technology
– Learning never stops
• Work hard
• Meet your commitments/deadlines
– Just like you did in school!
• Be a contributing member of the team
• Be curious
• Ask questions
• Sign up for needed tasks
Key Aspects to a Design
• Sound design and simulation
• Prototype verification
• Break the design
• Test, test, test
• Minimize costs
• Packaging/usability
• Manufacturability
• Test
How do you continue to grow?
• Stay on the leading edge of technology
• Keep a watchful eye on your industry
• Become more well-rounded
– Global perspective
– Communication skills
– Project management
– Systems perspective
The World is Flat
Bachelor's Degrees conferred by Degree Granting Institutions in
the US
# Engineering Degrees Awarded
90000
80000
70000
60000
50000
Series1
40000
30000
20000
10000
0
1965
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
Academic Year
Source: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Educational Statistics,
Higher Education General Information Survey (HEGIS)
2005
Engineering Graduates Comparison
Country
Graduates
China
India
Japan
Russia
US
Germany
France
UK
300,000
200,000
103,300
90,700
63,300
25,500
22,800
22,000
Source – NSF: Science and Engineering Indicators 2004
*Data for China and India are estimates
Product Development Process
Modeling,
Design
Analysis,
Simulation
Verification/
Prototype
Validation
Manufacturing
“97% of design engineers support their designs all the way
throughout the manufacturing phase” - Cahners Research,
2001
The Need for Validating Simulations with Test Data
“ The shuttle Columbia was doomed in part because NASA relied
on flawed computer simulations and mathematical formulas
that failed to accurately predict damage… ”
“ …experts say, they should have performed tests on
shuttle components… ”
Columbia Accident Investigation Board findings as summarized by
Alan Levin and Traci Watson, USA Today
Emphasis by author
Typical Manufacturing Line
Discrete
Control
Machine
Vision
Temperature
Control
Motion
Control
Operator
Interface
Geoffrey
C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
Typical Measurement and Automation Applications
Body & Chassis Audio Engine
Durability
Acoustics
RF
Signal
Keypad
Emissions
LCD
Sound
Electronics
Tire & Brake
Battery
Audio Sound
Video Signal
Power Supply
Electronics
Disk Drive
Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
Safety
Laser Photocoagulation
From the touch screen
user interface, physicians can
select spot sizes, pattern
types, spot density and
number of spots.
Sanarus Medical, Inc.
™
Visica2 Treatment System
– Cryogenically freezes benign breast
tumors using ultrasound
– Eliminates need for surgery
– CompactRIO and LabVIEW
used to design, prototype,
and deploy a control system
Octal Core
Quad Core
3 GHz
Single Core
Parallel Architectures Drive Performance
Faster processors
Multicore processors
Clock Speed (kHz)
Transistor Count
1,000,000,000
100,000,000
10,000,000
Intel QX6700
Quad-Core
Processor
1,000,000
100,000
10,000
1,000
1970
1975
1980
1985
1990
1995
2000
2005
2010
• Pair of Core 2 dies in single package
• 2.66 GHz CPU speed
There’s a Small Catch…
“To fully exploit the power of processors
working in parallel...new software must deal
with the problem of concurrency."
– Bill Gates, Microsoft
“But a parallel programming model…
will not emerge for five to 10 years,
according to experts from Microsoft Corp."
– Rick Merritt, EE Times
Inherent Parallelism with LabVIEW
15 Global Challenges Facing Humanity
World Federation of United Nations Associations - Millennium Project
Green is Everywhere
What Others are Saying
“We find with energy and greenhouse gases, if you start to
measure, people reduce the usage,” says Linda Fisher, the
chief sustainability officer at DuPont. Measuring is not a
simple task, but once a company has a proper baseline it
can see what can be changed.
- Excerpt from “A Change in Climate”, published in the
January issue of the Economist
“What gets measured gets managed”
- Excerpt from Green to Gold authored by Daniel Esty and
Andrew Winston
Measure It
Fix It!
Green Engineering
Definition:
Green Engineering is the use of measurement and control
techniques to design, develop, and improve products and
technologies resulting in environmental and economic
benefits
NI Enabling Technologies:
• High-Speed and High-Resolution Measurements
• Advanced Analysis and Signal Processing
• High-Speed and Advanced Control
• Embedded System Technology
Green Engineering Areas
• Renewable Power Generation
• Power Monitoring
• Environmental Monitoring
• Optimizing the Efficiency of Existing Machines and
Automation Systems
• Development and Test of Environmentally Beneficial
Products and Technologies
Renewable Energy
Siemens Power Generation - Denmark
• One of the premier companies in the international
power generation sector
• Supply wind turbine generators with rotor diameters
up to 107 meters (350 ft)
• Use PXI, LabVIEW, and LabVIEW Real-Time and to
develop and test the control algorithms embedded in
the turbines
Thermomax Tests Evacuated Tube Solar Collectors
• Challenge: Test equipment for efficient and
economical conversion of solar radiation into
thermal energy.
• Solution: Two PC-based, fully automated test
systems.
• Products: FieldPoint, Motion Control, LabVIEW
DSC
• Green Benefits: The new facilities have
significantly reduced the time and cost of product
development, making it possible to perform tests all
year round, using the solar simulator.
Control of a Permanent Magnet Linear Generator for
Ocean Wave Energy
• Challenge: Interest in wave energy conversion devices is rapidly growing worldwide
for the potential to harness a sustainable and renewable energy source. Due to the
oscillatory nature of ocean waves, the power generated from a permanent magnet
linear generator (PMLG) for ocean wave energy conversion is pulsed and left
unconditioned, is not easily used or stored.
• Solution: With an active rectifier topology, the real and reactive power from the PMLG
is fully controllable. Using a novel three-phase active rectifier topology and force
controller with a dc-dc converter for bus voltage regulation the energy can be stored.
• Products: CompactRIO, LabVIEW FPGA
• Green Benefits: A working design of a three-phase active rectifier and controller was
implemented and prototyped with a CompactRIO system.
Full paper available at:
http://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/dspace/bitstream/1957/5921/1/Novel+Control+of+a+Permanent+Ma
Retrofitting Existing Machines and
Production Equipment
Virginia Tech Wins ChallengeX 2006 Hybrid
Vehicle Competition with cRIO
• Challenge: Develop methods for reducing total energy
consumption and emissions in a crossover vehicle while
maintaining or exceeding vehicle utility and performance
• Solution: A high-level control strategy for the
hybrid vehicles implemented and prototyped with LabVIEW FPGA
& CompactRIO.
• Result: VT reduced well-to-wheels petroleum use by
74% for Year 2 Win
• Products: LabVIEW, Simulation Interface Toolkit, LabVIEW RealTime, CompactRIO
• Green Benefit: A three-year engineering competition to improve
fuel efficiency and performance at a lower cost for future GM
vehicles.
Steel Mill Reactor Monitoring
• One of the largest consumers
of electricity in the US
• Optimizing Existing Melting Process using:
– Advanced Power Analysis
– FPGA-based protection circuit
– Datalogging
• Used CompactRIO for advanced control and integrated it
with existing PLC system
• Prevents the over melting of scrap steel (waste
electricity)
• Maximize the efficient use of electrical energy and rapidly
change control methods to reduce power flicker
T&O Stelectric Reduces Pesticide Use with NI
Vision
• To keep the Danish railroad tracks
weed free, herbicides were sprayed
on 100% of the railroad tracks
• NI Vision systems were outfitted on
the weed spraying wagon to identify
weeds and limit pesticide spraying to
those areas
• Green Benefit
– Reduced herbicide usage by 50%
– Automated the reporting of pesticide
use to comply with environmental
regulations
Environmental Monitoring
Environmental Sensor Networks:
Monitoring Global Change
• Monitoring interactive phenomena
– Atmosphere, Water, Soil, and Ecosystems
• Characteristic spatiotemporal diversity
C
H2 O
Light
Q
Environmental Sensor Networks:
Example Program - NIMS
NIMS at Wind River (Costa Rica)
Canopy Crane Research Facility
Mercury Emissions Stack Monitor
Application
• Reliable mercury emissions sampling system for
coal fired power plants
• Developed as monitoring system approved by
EPA
Benefits
• Expanded memory and performance
• Automated interface
Technical Key
• Flexible, real-time software architecture
“The
success of the project was due to the processing and automation
power of the cFP-2120, as well as the ease of use derived from integrating
the PDA Control System. ”
46
From Kindergarten to Rocket Science
LEGO Mindstorms NXT
“the smartest, coolest toy
of the year”
CERN Large Hadron Collider
“the most powerful instrument
on earth”
National Instruments Vision Evolved
“To do for embedded what the PC did for the desktop.”
Graphical System Design
Virtual Instrumentation
Complex instrumentation
RF
Digital
Distributed
Embedded Systems
Real-time measurements
Embedded monitoring
Hardware in the loop
Industrial control
RT/FPGA systems
Electronic devices
C code generation
It’s OK
to have fun!
Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
What is Virtual Instrumentation?
Customer-Defined
PC-Based Measurement and
Automation Solutions
Traditional Vendor-Defined
Instruments
Processor
Display
RAM
Power
Supply
Real-Time
OS
Hard Disk
Engineering Feats were Rock Festivals…
32,000,000 visitors came to see
25,000 New
Yorkers
paraded
• 200,000
people
celebrated
a
the 1000 foot Eiffel Tower in 1889
week-long
the
for 16 hoursfiesta
whenwhen
the first
Golden
Gate
Bridge
cablegram
was
sent was
from
opened
Americainto1937
Europe.
Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
Engineers used to be Rock Stars
Wright brothers
Thomas Edison
Geoffrey C. Orsak, NI Week 2004
Henry Ford
The World Needs Engineers
•Intelligence
•Problem solvers
•Creativity
•Persistence
•Thoroughness
•Logical
•Practical
“Clearly it is now possible for more people than
ever to collaborate and compete in real time … on
a more equal footing than any time in the history of
the world – using computers, e-mail, networks,
teleconferencing, and dynamic new software.”
- T. Friedman, The World is Flat
“… the most profound thing to me is the fact that a
fourteen-year-old in Romania or Bangalore or the
Soviet Union or Vietnam has all the information, all
the tools, all the software, easily available to apply
knowledge however they want.”
- M. Andreessen, The World is Flat