From March 27-28, Bauman MSTU held the IV Scientific and Practical Conference 'Technologies for Developing and Fine-tuning Complex Engineering Systems' dedicated to management systems and digital signal processing. The main purpose of the conference, organised by the engineering technology and modelling centre Exponenta, was to raise the industry's awareness of effective methods for designing complex systems through reports given by participants and an exposition of auxiliary equipment for solving the technological challenges of designing.
The conference is gaining momentum every year, becoming broader and more significant. The increasing number of delegates taking part every year demonstrates the relevance of this event. This year, the event gathered together more than a thousand specialists and heads of engineering subdivisions from high-tech industries in Russia and CIS countries – production facilities in the military, automobile, radio-electronic and aerospace industries that develop complex systems consisting of a large number of different mutually integrated components.
Opening the conference, Nikita Bogoslavsky, CEO of Exponenta Centre, stated: "In modern technology, algorithms that control the behaviour of the product and its parts play an increasingly important role: more subsystems, more algorithms, more electronics and more programming code. When the product has so much 'autonomous intelligence', its development and fine-tuning becomes a complex and separate, important component of the design process itself.
The technology decided on for designing this complexity has an enormous impact on the cost and duration of the tests; whether the tests will be carried out by means of checking characteristics or by means of troubleshooting, competitiveness and compliance with project deadlines.
Once again, we, together with Bauman MSTU, would like to communicate to a wide range of engineers: in order to design complex products and mutually integrate the subsystems and behavioural algorithms of modern smart equipment, special model-oriented approaches to the organisation of research and development must be consciously applied. This component of designing should be purposefully introduced and developed in production facilities; a so-called model-oriented design infrastructure should be created that incorporates tools, processes and people carrying out methodological support. Without these initiatives, sustainable development is no longer possible for a developer company.
Under the conditions of financial constraints, common both for the competitive market and the market of public orders, a project team's ability to apply elements of model-oriented design technology has a determining influence on the success of relevant research and development. Especially when it comes to systems of high integration complexity.'
Representatives of leading industrial companies and universities made presentations at the conference: Sukhoy Civil Aircrafts, Tupolev, Yokogawa, ODK-Aviadvigatel, NPP Salyut, DVFU, Radio Gigabit, KB Radar, and other. Engineers from the Exponenta Centre demonstrated examples of real projects that have been implemented.
Speakers at the conference presented their views on the development of the Russian industry and shared success stories in applying model-oriented designing to the field of autonomous systems of automatic control and digital signal processing systems.
The speakers considered a wide range of issues – from the analysis of engineering data and creation of a passenger airliner control system to the implementation of embedded algorithms on a domestic electronic component base (ECB), the development of an electric-drive control system and improvement of embedded software development processes using model-oriented designing. Speakers at the conference described in detail how this methodology, used by engineers around the world, would help to improve the efficiency of research and development when creating complex engineering systems under the conditions of ECB import substitution.
As part of the exposition, conference delegates were shown various aspects of technology for model-oriented designing, including the use of convolutional neural networks (deep learning) in embedded systems, recognition of objects and persons using thermal imagers, design of an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) control system using the example of a drone, implementation of a tracking system, programming of domestic ECB, and many other facets of this technology.
In particular, the RITM semirealistic modelling complex was presented at the exhibition – a turnkey software & hardware solution providing real-time testing capabilities and having a wide range of applications: from simulators of internal combustion engines to navigation systems for autonomous vehicles.
On the first day of the Conference, a briefing was arranged for mass media representatives titled 'Risks for the Russian industry in case of delayed introduction of model-oriented designing methodologies for the development of science-intensive products and training of engineering personnel'.
Participants of the briefing, including the management of Bauman MSTU, Exponenta Centre, FSUE NAMI and a number of other companies, discussed such issues as the acceleration of the aerospace equipment production cycle and system approaches to early detection of failures, ways to achieve the required level of quality for engineering personnel through the expansion of practice-oriented training. Besides this, they considered ways to reduce the influence of ECB problems during the modernisation and development of new products and problems of industrial cooperation in design work on complex engineering products.
'The key factor in reducing R&D costs, in my opinion, is decreasing the time spent on field testing, which we estimate comprises up to 70% of all project costs,' said Maxim Golubev, Head of the Automatic Gearbox Control System Development Area, NAMI. 'Such tests require a huge amount of resources: renting stands and testing sites, purchasing sensors and testing equipment, travel and organisational expenses. It is possible to reduce the number of tests by creating controlled object models and using HIL-systems. We can confidently speak about NAMI's success in using the HIL and MIL testing solutions offered by the Exponenta Centre.'
Exponenta Engineering Technology and Modelling Centre is the official representative office of MathWorks in Russia and CIS, a leading global supplier of tools for mathematical modelling and computation. Exponenta Centre provides services in the field of algorithmic data processing and algorithmic designing, in particular, for aerospace, military, radio-electronic, energy and many other industries.
Exponenta Centre has developed and produces RITM semirealistic modelling complexes in Russia, based on which the customer is supplied with ready solutions for the rapid prototyping or semirealistic testing of embedded systems. Exponenta also provides services for implementing model-oriented designing methodology for the accelerated development of complex engineering systems.
Model-oriented designing is an efficient and cost-effective way to develop management systems, process signals and images, build communication systems, make developments in the field of mechatronics and create embedded systems. More than a million engineers worldwide use MATLAB and Simulink environments for model-oriented designing and the development of management, communication and digital signal processing systems. In Russia the methodology is actively used by the following leading companies: KamAZ PJSC, NPO Lavochkina JSC, Tupolev PJSC, RDC FGC UES OJSC, and many others. The following universities educate students using model-oriented design tools - a world standard in higher education and scientific research: Bauman Moscow State Technical University (Bauman MSTU), Saint Petersburg State University, Urals Federal University, and Far Eastern Federal University.