Advances in Robotics & Automation

The current complexity of custom and embedded core or IP integrated electronics demand for a new generation of automated system design and development methods. High-Level Synthesis plays a critical part of such automated methods. However, existing HLS tools are not widely accepted by the engineering community for a number of practical reasons. This article is a practical perspective of such issues, and it analyses the reasons for this. Morever, the article is a useful introduction to the system engineer that wants to consider HLS as part of his everyday system design practice. An alternative HLS toolset is presented that the author has developed and which is based on formal methods, thus it guarandees the correctness of the synthesized hardware and system. The paper completes with conclussions and a number of suggestions about the future directions of HLS technology and what is actually needed by the engineering community.

More and more IT organizations or IT outsourcing service providers are embracing Information Technology Process Automation (ITPA) as it has transformed the way IT services are delivered to end users. As a result, one of the highly claimed benefits of ITPA is total cost reduction in IT operations. However, ITPA subjects to different interpretations on topics like ITPA criteria, use cases as well as its effects on organizations. Today, there is limited literature and conflicting views on such ITPA topics. The objective of this study is to shed some lights on ITPA criteria, use cases as well as the effects ITPA brings. The effects include the benefits as well as negative effects of ITPA. Moreover, some factors to guide organizations how to adopt and deploy ITPA are also discussed. This study has taken a qualitative approach in which ITPA literature was reviewed and some IT professionals were interviewed. Lastly, limitations of the study, future research and conclusion were also provided.

Oil and gas facilities are required to have continuous production. With recent power supply challenges, it is important to provide reliable and resilient micro energy grid to avoid power interruption and achieve safe operation and shutdown of oil and gas facilities. The proposed power protection strategy is based on the development of micro energy grid with renewable energy sources. Self-healing strategies will be identified against all possible hazards and fault scenarios in oil and gas facility and critical components. This includes safety and performance degradation scenarios, and related power supply issues due to internal and external factors. Risk-based operation scenarios will be evaluated with different micro energy grid designs and configurations. The proposed solution will provide selfhealing and recovery operation using advanced and intelligent control devices.