In an era where climate change and sustainability are at the forefront of global discussions, the aerospace and defense industries are undergoing a significant transformation. Known for their high energy consumption and environmental impact, these sectors are now pivoting towards green manufacturing practices to reduce their carbon footprint and ensure sustainability for future generations.

The Urgency for Change

Aerospace and defense manufacturing traditionally involve processes like metalworking, painting, and engine testing, which are energy-intensive and emit considerable pollutants. With increasing regulatory pressures and a growing demand from consumers and stakeholders for environmentally responsible products, the industry is compelled to innovate. 

Reource : The New York Times

Clues emerging from the moments before an Army helicopter collided with a passenger jet suggest breakdowns in the system meant to help aircraft land safely at the busy Reagan National Airport.

Clues emerging from the moments before the deadly collision Wednesday night between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines passenger jet suggest that multiple layers of the country's aviation safety apparatus failed, according to flight recordings, a preliminary internal report from the Federal Aviation Administration, interviews with current and former air traffic controllers and others briefed on the matter.

The helicopter flew outside its approved flight path. The American Airlines pilots most likely did not see the helicopter close by as they made a turn toward the runway. And the air traffic controller, who was juggling two jobs at the same time, was unable to keep the helicopter and the plane separated.

An F.A.A. spokesman said the agency could not comment on the ongoing investigation, which is being led by the National Transportation Safety Board. Crash investigators will spend the next several months reviewing flight data, recordings from inside the cockpits, weather patterns, as well as interviewing controllers and others involved to try to figure out what went wrong.

Reource : The Economist

With the release of its latest artificial-intelligence (AI) model, DeepSeek, an obscure Chinese firm, has laid waste to several years of American policy meant to hold back Chinese innovation—and, in the process, blown a hole in the valuations of companies from Nvidia, America’s AI-chip champion, to Siemens Energy, a manufacturer of electrical equipment used in data centres. In demonstrating its ability to innovate around American export restrictions, DeepSeek has raised doubts as to whether access to piles of cutting-edge semiconductors and related equipment is as important as previously thought when it comes to training AI models.

Japan is emerging as a global leader in industrial automation. Japanese original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are at the forefront of this trend, with unique attention to efficient, intelligent, and automated industrial processes.

Chisa Nakata, president of Wind River® Japan since 2020, has helped Japanese customers with their mission-critical infrastructure across several industries, including aerospace and defense, industrial, medical, and automotive. That’s given her unique insight into the region’s embedded systems and automation development trends.

What industrial automation trends are you paying attention to?

Chisa Nakata: The initial convergence of IT and operational technology (OT) had little effect on industrial automation, but that’s no longer true. In the last five to eight years, embedded automation has adopted edge computing and complex software systems.

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