An extremely important question in these days of extreme 'AI Hype' is - What is the added business value of deploying AI (this is temporarily setting aside the huge assortment of technical and implementation-related issues, which need their own blog post(s)...). The added business value of AI is more subtle than, for example, the impact of automation (which can be AI-enabled) that might happen via productivity enhancements, or via increases in revenue, or both in some combination.
AI has an impact on improved decision-making processes, more accurate demand forecasts, or, at a manufacturing level, the prediction of mechanical failure in machinery - are often indirect, so one needs more subtle and innovative measures of the return on investment (#ROI) in #AI!https://t.co/t0jNT7RIoe
'AI, AI, #AI. It was almost impossible to walk into any room in #Davos2019 and not hear someone talking about artificial intelligence in all its forms...A good general rule right now is that whenever a conversation about AI comes up, a conversation about jobs is sure to follow.' https://t.co/d9B9LUcLZ8
The full report compares #DigitalTransformation Barriers perceived by CXOs of cos with >$1B revenue; 2018 v 2019. Those who thought it was 'Inability to experiment quickly' shrank from over 50% to <25%, while those who thought it was 'Lack of change mgmt capability' 30% → ~35% pic.twitter.com/jvNvW46Z0l
Mr. Jitendra Jadhav, Director of the National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL) outlines the technology and design envelope of the Regional Transport Aircraft (RTA) project in this video (which is a pre-Aero India 2019 Webinar) in the overall context of the Ministry of Civil Aviation's UDAN (Uday Desh ka Aam Nagarik) Program. The timeline envisaged for a flying prototype is 70 months.
The Regional Transport Aircraft, designed mainly to ply between Tier-II and Tier-II cities in India, (conforming to a forecast of 500 million passengers by 2027 and actual projected needs of Indian airline operators) is envisaged to embody a number of advanced technologies, including the Natural Laminar Flow Wing, a Next Generation Power Plant (to be imported), Fly-by-wire flight control (with a matching display system), Open Distributed Modular Avionics (with facilities such as GPS-WAAS [the Wide-Area Augmentation System using GPS], the ADS-B [Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast] system for aircraft tracking]), Active Vibration and Noise Control.
Furthermore, advanced aerospace maintenance concepts, such as Integrated Vehicle Health Monitoring (IVHM) and Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) are expected to be incorporated into the aircraft technology envelope right from the beginning, to function with a Lean Ground Infrastructure (which, given that the aircraft will ply Tier-II and Tier-III city airports, is a significant consideration). And in order to enable better fuel efficiency, it is proposed that (i) the airframe will be made of (lighter) advanced composites, (ii) Aerodynamic drag reduction will be utilized, especially in the Natural Laminar Flow Wing, and (iii) a next generation power plant with an optimized turbine and compressor will be used. Other advanced materials will also be used in coatings, enabling functionalities such as self-cleaning, anti-icing, and abrasion-resistance in the airframe and engine.
The initial prototype will build on the earlier progress with the 19-seater version of the Saras. The video also discusses a number of other advanced ideas, including how the entire Vehicle Health Management functionality will be networked to a central core computer, with the Avionics and Flight Control modules directly interfacing with Diagnostic/Prognostic algorithms.
While I have outlined just the core of the presentation in this blog, the full Webinar contains many other details, and includes what I thought was a very interesting Q&A session at the end, with many probing questions asked by Webinar attendees. To list a few: (i) Where will the Advanced Turboprop engine be sourced from? (ii) What are the details of the strategy for controlling maintenance costs? and (iii) How will the specific fuel consumption (SFC) be reduced?
Overall, an interesting webinar on NAL's RTA Project!
