Co-chaired by ENCS EMC Chair, Bruce Archambeault. Register here: https://www.emc2021.emcss.org/

Mechatronics systems have been applied in different areas of applications, e.g., mechanical, aerospace and defense industry. In this presentation, we will introduce two practical case studies of how the synergistic integration of sensors, actuators and microcontrollers, and how these systems are controlled to tackle a variety of scenarios. The first case study is autonomous jet noise reduction. The jet noise of tactical jet aircrafts dominates over other noise sources while being a strong function of the jet exhaust velocity. It is difficult for jet noise reduction when the source is distributed over a region downstream with a very high sound amplitude. The flow is highly turbulent and is difficult to control due to the high velocity and high temperature in the jet. Through experiment, we have implemented an efficient piezoelectric actuator system which is capable of withstanding the extreme mechanical and thermal stresses of tactical aircrafts. The second case example is a suite of wireless passive temperature, pressure and strain sensors for engine health monitoring. Internal combustion and turbine engines are vital complex propulsion systems and are primary and essential sources for vehicle propulsion. They often supply power for various safety critical subsystems of the vehicle in terms of electrical, hydraulic, and pneumatic power. A set of wireless passive sensors have been developed along with experimental demonstration in turbine engine systems for online, real-time temperature pressure, and strain monitoring. Speaker(s): Dr. Cheryl Xu, Agenda: Mechatronics and Automation for Revitalizing Critical infrastructure Health (MARCH) - Moving from Research to Application The IEEE Industrial Electronics Society Chapter of the Eastern North Carolina Section is hosting a multi-disciplinary webinar series titled, “Mechatronics and Automation for Revitalizing Critical infrastructure Health (MARCH) - Moving from Research to Application”. The speakers will be focusing on applied research and development in automation of sensors, actuators and intelligent decision making to improve, automate or smarten critical infrastructure systems such as power, communication, water, transportation, etc. for fault detection, diagnosis and mitigation, and interconnected collaborative operation. The goal of the webinar series is to build and expand connections between faculty and to foster new faculty-industry relationships to widen the applicability of their research to a larger industry/academic audience. This webinar also aims to broaden the research horizon and facilitate the integration of scientific aspects that were previously not considered as prominent factors for the operation of certain critical infrastructure. Attendees will have the opportunity to interact with the speakers and other attendees to build partnerships to participate in funding opportunities and collaborative interdisciplinary research. Raleigh, North Carolina, United States, Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/275455

Abstract: Conversational Artificial Intelligence (Conv-AI) refers to the technologies that enable the human-machine conversations. They can be chat or voice assistants. We have seen a clear transformation from Chatbots to Virtual Agents in a very short span, because of the services and cost efficiencies that the Conversational AI can deliver. Additionally, the Virtual Agents technologies have demonstrated the superlative benefits of a human like conversations that encourage the customers to adopt to this technology more easily. The gap between the Human-Human and Human –Machine conversations is constantly narrowing. The conversational AI imitates th ehuman learning process and its main constructs are based on the business language, the dialog management and the ability to learn from the feedback. Business Language: Training the machine on the business language including the intent, the entities and the frequently asked questions Dialogue management: Leveraging the foundational NLP , the dialog process simulates the human dialog process quickly with intuitive design tools. Formulates the questions and the corresponding responses. Reinforcement learning: Finally, machine learning algorithms refine responses over time to ensure accuracy During this session we plan to demonstrate the Conversational AI techniques that are available to us today. The demo topics to include are: - Pre-trained Catalogs of Intents (Industry specific) - Short Tail & Long Tail: - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) - Dynamic Response retrieval with context awareness - Interactive dialogs - Beyond FAQs - Process Flows Speaker(s): Mr. Andrew Freed, Agenda: 6:00-- Gathering time & Networking 6:15 -- Speaker Introduction 6:20 -- Presentation & Demo 7:45 -- Q & A Virtual: https://events.vtools.ieee.org/m/275026