Technological development offers a wide range of new possibilities for implementation of

production processes. Continual production development is the main key to success and

competitiveness improvement, labour productivity and image-building for all manufacturing

companies. The article deals with designing of new workplace with implementation and

utilization of automated robot for faster and safer handling of cast stock. The new layout

of workplace is created in software Process Simulate.

Automating the tasks that require manpower has been considered as an area of active research in science and technology. Challenges in designing such systems include accuracy in the parameters of performance, minimal hardware, cost-efficiency, and security. The efficiency of drones designed for replacing humans is often evaluated using their weight, flying time, and power consumption. Herein, the prototypebased Drone model has been designed and discussed for horticulture applications. In this model, a horticulture drone has been designed for structuring and cutting of plants in street interstates. This methodology focuses on automation engineering that is utilized for cutting the plants in less time and less power, thereby diminishing the contamination that may happen by utilizing fuels. The epic part of this plan includes the less weight drone predesigned using Computer-Aided Three-Dimensional Interactive Application (CATIA) V5 Software. The throttle for the motors is adjusted at 50% to get the required thrust for the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) to fly. Experimental results show that the horticulture drone has comparatively more flying time and less power consumption.

The main objective of the research work was to identify the dimensions of complexity and study the relationship between these defined dimensions in the industrial automation sector. To achieve these objectives in the study, there was assumed the following major hypothesis: With the increasing role of dynamic cross-section of the complexity there is growing importance of relationship dimension for competitive advantage. In the study there were diagnosed four dimensions of complexity. Existence of the relationship between these four identified dimensions of complexity occurred by the use of the Fisher’s exact test, which is a variant of the test of independence ��2. Furthermore, there were calculated V-Cramer factors to estimate the intensity of the above-mentioned relationship between analyzed dimensions. The research discovered that the three out of four dimensions such as the number of elements, variety of elements and uncertainty depend on the last dimension of complexity which is the relationship between elements. In the turbulent environment there is a growing importance of the relationship dimension. It forms competitive advantage and is a key condition of success in creating a new type of modern enterprise strategy that occurs within complexity management in the industrial automation sector.

The awareness of the growing importance of the complexity in creating a new type of a modern enterprise strategy and in introducing changes within planning, control and organizational structures contributed to undertaking studies on relationships occurring between the complexity of a modern enterprise and its flexibility in the sector of industrial automation, as well as filling the gap relating to the cognitive impact of poor complexity management on the flexibility of the company. The main objective of the research work is to check whether there is an important relationship between the complexity of the business and its flexibility in the industrial automation sector. Quantification of the relationship between these two quantities – the complexity and flexibility – happened by the use of the Multidimensional Correspondence Analysis (MCA) and Perceptual Maps. The study which has been carried out indicated that the flexibility and complexity functions in the enterprise management rise, however, the knowledge of these issues is highly insufficient. The research discovered that the obstacles which hamper striking a balance between the flexibility and complexity in their advanced stages exert a devastating impact on the quality of the process management. Reducing the flexibility at its higher levels generates a context in which the market risk is enhanced. Companies characterised by improper flexibility management bear higher workforce costs and their processes of decision-making last longer. Methodical and systematized study of flexibility and complexity will decrease the destructive influence of the interaction between these two categories.

Long-duration human space missions require intelligent regenerative life support systems that can recycle resources and automatically manage failures. This paper explores using Petri nets to model the reliability and complex interactions of such closed-loop systems. An architecture consisting of primary systems, backups, and consumable reserves is outlined. The automation system that controls everything is described. Petri nets can capture concurrency, failure modes, redundancy, and dynamic behavior. A modular modeling methodology is presented to develop hierarchical Petri net models that scale in fidelity. Elementary fragments represent failures and redundancy. Subsystem modules can be substituted for more detailed models. Analysis and simulation assess system reliability and failure response. This supports designing ultra-reliable systems to safely sustain human life in space.

In the paper a frequency method of filtering airborne laser data is presented. A number of algorithms developed to remove objects above a terrain (buildings, vegetation etc.) in order to obtain the terrain surface were presented in literature. Those all methods published are based on geometrical criteria, i.e. on a specific threshold of elevation differences between two neighbouring points or groups of points. In other words, topographical surface is described in a spatial domain. The proposed algorithm operates on topographical surface described in a frequency domain. Two major tools, i.e. Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) and digital filters are used. The principal assumption is based on the idea that low frequencies are responsible for a terrain surface, while high frequencies are connected to objects above the terrain. The general guidelines of this method were for the first time presented at (Marmol and Jachimski, 2004). Due to the fact that the preliminary results showed some limitations, two-stage filtering algorithm has been introduced. The frequency filter was modified in such a manner that different filter parameters are used to detect buildings than those to recognize vegetation. In the first stage of data processing the filtering concerning elimination of points connected with urban areas was applied. The low-pass filter with parameters determined for urban area was used for the whole tested terrain in that stage. The purpose of the second stage was to eliminate vegetation by using the filter for forest areas. The presented method was tested by using data sets obtained in the ISPRS test on extracting DTM from point clouds. The results of using the two-stage algorithm were com- pared with both reference data and with filtering results of eight method reported to ISPRS test. A numerical comparison of the filter output with a reference data set shows that the filter generates DTM of a satisfactory quality. The accuracy of DTM produced by the frequency algorithm fits the average accuracy of eight methods reported in the ISPRS test.

Most of the developing countries economy largely depends on the agriculture. More than half of the population rely on agriculture related activities for their survival. In spite of dependency on agriculture, the technological development of agricultural work in developing country is not comparable to the countries like Australia or Israel. The main reason behind the lack of development is the small size of farms. Such farmers cannot afford expensive technology available in the market due to limited profit margins. The report describes an autonomous fertilization system that takes care of the fertilization requirements of the small scale farms at affordable rates. The system is divided in two parts namely User Interface and Control System. The user interface is designed using the state of the art Raspberry Pi board and a touch screen LCD. The control system is developed using the Arduino platform and can control five fertilizers at a time. The output of the system is the mix of the fertilizer, which is forced into the drip irrigation system of the farm. The system has built in data for the fertilization requirement for important crops and vegetation. The system also facilitates the customize fertilization requirements to be added in the system as per the user requirements.

The realization of digitalization in production companies – currently also referred to as Industry

4.0 – aims for reduction of internal value creation costs as well as costs for intercompany

collaboration and plays a key role in their current strategy development. However, related

strategy research still lacks to provide operationalized digitalization methods and tools to

practitioners with scientific rigor as well as real-world relevance. To challenge this status

quo, we present a scientifically grounded 14-step procedure model including 11 practically

tested tools, developed specifically for real-world application. The model leads practitioners

from their first contact with industrial digitalization, through the maturity assessment of

143 digitalization items, until the implementation of a KPI-monitoring system and a continuous

improvement process. We applied and re-worked the procedure model during three

years of application. Validation and Feedback from practitioners and scholars indicate, that

the model drives strategy development towards objective and data-based decision making

and increases stakeholder engagement in organizations considerably.

This article presents the current and future situation of heat consumption in the Republic of Kazakhstan. The predicted growth of thermal loads until 2030 is shown in the example of Karaganda city. Therefore, the task of creating and implementing automated heat points into the system of heat-supply complexes of cities of the Republic of Kazakhstan is relevant. The article considers the concept of measurement and processing of information in district heating supply systems based on variable cycles of the interrogation of parameters of heat supply at the heat points. As a result of the conducted research, a microcontroller SMART-system for the implementation of rational modes of heat supply used in the process of obtaining and processing information on heat-consumption parameters and making control decisions regarding variable cycles of heat-supply-parameter interrogation at heat points was developed and implemented. The results of the study have been successfully tested on the facilities equipped with automated heat points.

The following paper presents the players profiling methodology applied to the turn-based computer game in the audience-driven system. The general scope are mobile games where the players compete against each other and are able to tackle challenges presented by the game engine. As the aim of the game producer is to make the gameplay as attractive as possible, the players should be paired in a way that makes their duel the most exciting. This requires the proper player profiling based on their previous games. The paper presents the general structure of the system, the method for extracting information about each duel and storing them in the data vector form and the method for classifying different players through the clustering or predefined category assignment. The obtained results show the applied method is suitable for the simulated data of the gameplay model and clustering of players may be used to effectively group them and pair for the duels.

The article deals with the features and characteristics of intelligent systems for modelling business processes. Their classification was made and criteria for comparison were developed. According to the comparative analysis of existing expert systems for intelligent analysis, a reasonable choice of system for modelling business processes of a particular enterprise has been carried out. In general, it was found that the introduction of intelligent systems for modelling business processes of the enterprise and forecasting its activities for future allows management of the company to obtain relevant and necessary information for the adoption of effective management decisions and the development of a strategic plan.

In this study, a digital manometer was used as a transfer standard to perform calibration of a pneumatic pressure balance. The same pressure balance was calibrated with the cross-floating method based on falling rate determination (FRD). Differences among the effective area results show an agreement of less than 10 ppm between the digital manometer-assisted calibration (DMAC) method and the FRD method. The method in which a digital pressure gauge is used as a transfer standard not only facilitates calibration but also enables the automation of pressure balance calibration. Full automation of pressure balance calibration requires an automatic mass loading system for both the reference instrument and the device under test. Since there is a lot of different kinds of pressure balances, it is nearly impossible for a pressure metrology laboratory to have an automatic mass-handler system for every type of pressure balance. Therefore, a more efficient way in which automated mass-handler systems are not required i.e., a semi-automatic calibration system, is designed. For that purpose, two different calibration procedures, increasing-decreasing cycles, and pressurize-vent (P-V) procedures are performed and compared. The equivalence of procedure results makes the semi-automated calibration design of pressure balances possible. The most distinguishing advantages of a semi-automated calibration system are the applicability to any type of pressure balance and low cost compared to full automation.

More than 4.6 mln ha in the Russian Federation are irrigated. Their culvert hydraulic structures are part of network structures and are the most widespread. After the crisis of the 1990s, proper maintenance of many reclamation systems was impossible due to a lack of funds. This led to the loss of about half of the water taken from irrigation sources in irrigation canals. The planned increase in the technical level of irrigation systems requires the automation of the operation of both the entire system as a whole and separately located culverts. This will avoid significant losses of water supply for irrigation and prevent water shortages with the insufficient discipline of water users. Means of hydraulic automation of water supply are being installed on small irrigation canals in Russia. A water flow regulating valve is proposed, with no mechanical movinparts, and gates are not involved in the control process. The operation of the structure is based on the injection effect, in which excess water entering the downstream with a decrease in water consumption begins to circulate between the outlet section of the transit pipe and the diffuser at the end section of the valve. Using the methods of measuring hydrodynamics and the theory of jet devices, theoretical dependences were obtained, which make it possible to determine the main hydraulic characteristics of the structure. The design form of the flow part of the regulator has been developed and a physical model has been made. In a mirror hydraulic flume, the operation modes of the water outlet were studied with and without regulation. The actual values of hydraulic parameters were obtained, which confirmed the validity of the use of theoretical dependencies. The discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental results is within the experimental error. It has been proven that it is possible to circulate excess water between the downstream and intermediate pools of the regulator.

This paper develops an automatic method to calculate the macrotexture depth of pavement roads, using the tire/road noise data collected by the two directional microphones mounted underneath a moving test vehicle. The directional microphones collect valid tire/road noise signal at the travel speed of 10–110 km/h, and the sampling frequency is 50 kHz. The tire/road noise signal carries significant amount of road surface information, such as macrotexture depth. Using bandpass filter, principal component analysis, speed effect elimination, Gaussian mixture model, and reversible jump Markov Chain Monte Carlo, the macrotexture depth of pavement roads can be calculated from the tire/road noise data, automatically and efficiently. Compared to the macrotexture depth results by the sand-patch method and laser profiler, the acoustic method has been successfully demonstrated in engineering applications for the accurate results of macrotexture depth with excellent repeatability, at the test vehicle’s travel speed of 10-110 km/h.

In the presented paper, two different meshing strategies are compared to show the accuracy advantage of properly constructed mesh. For this purpose, it was necessary to automatize simulation process, in order to perform a number of calculations without the necessity of user interaction. Later, a method of results extrapolation as well as a way of judging mesh quality are introduced for more throughout comparison of presented discretization strategies. The latter method, called grid convergence index, is also used to calculate probability range of accurate result. To conclude, outcomes of this study are in agreement with general opinon on pracitces for an accurate CFD result. Structured O-type mesh with refinement at wall boundaries (often referred to as “inflation layers”) performs better than simple free mesh.

What were the beginnings of modern communication infrastructure? What is ’artificial intelli-gence’ and what it imitates in ’natural intelli-gence’? Does its accuracy, reliability and objectivity make AI the journalists’ friend or is it in fact an enemy due to the ongoing automation of editori-al and publishing work? This two-part introduction to the problem of AI in journalism discusses all those questions and the hopes and fears that are connected with the new technology

The intelligent automated store warehouse (iZMS) research and development project was created to meet the expectations of a modern automatic store. The project concerns the development of the concept and pilot implementation of an automated store warehouse adapted to the autonomous and automatic sales of goods selected by retail chains. One of the aims of the iZMS project is to develop a scalable solution that allows for the simple adaptation of the iZMS to the needs of a potential customer, considering their requirements in terms of the quantity and variety of assortment offered within the iZMS. An important requirement in the use of the iZMS system is minimizing the customer waiting time for purchased products. This problem is related, among others, to the placement of products on the shelves of racks and will be solved in the optimizing process. Running optimization tasks requires a simulator that will mimic the features of a physical device faster than in real time to generate many proposals of the allocation of goods on storage racks in the shortest possible time and choose the best one, guaranteeing the shortest picking time of a representative basket of goods. A numerical simulator was developed to model the physical structures of food storage equipment and then simulate the sales process. Among the results obtained, the most important are the time parameters of individual operations,which will be used to optimize the placement of goods on storage racks. After analyzing the needs resulting from the usage of the iZMS system, we decided to develop a dynamic, deterministic simulator with discrete objects and perform the simulation with a controlled time increment and, in some cases, utilize elements of event-driven simulation, in which the flow of goods is simulated with first-in, first-out (FIFO) queues. Finally, verification of the numerical simulator with a physical model confirmed that it could be employed in optimization processes.

Ensuring the required quality of castings is an important part of the production process. The quality control should be carried out in a fast

and accurate way. These requirements can be met by the use of an optical measuring system installed on the arm of an industrial robot. In

the article a methodology for assessing the quality of robotic measurement system to control certain feature of the casting, based on the

analysis of repeatability and reproducibility is presented. It was shown that industrial robots equipped with optical measuring systems have

the accuracy allowing their use in the process of dimensional control of castings manufactured by lost-wax process, permanent-mould

casting, and pressure die-casting.

The scope of this work focuses on the aspects of quality and safety assurance of the iron cast manufacturing processes. Special attention

was given to the processes of quality control and after-machining of iron casts manufactured on automatic foundry lines. Due to low level

of automation and huge work intensity at this stage of the process, a model area was established which underwent reorganization

in accordance with the assumptions of the World Class Manufacturing (WCM). An analysis of work intensity was carried out and the costs

were divided in order to identify operations with no value added, particularly at individual manufacturing departments. Also an analysis

of ergonomics at work stations was carried out to eliminate activities that are uncomfortable and dangerous to the workers' health. Several

solutions were proposed in terms of rationalization of work organization at iron cast after-machining work stations. The proposed solutions

were assessed with the use of multi-criteria assessment tools and then the best variant was selected based on the assumed optimization

criteria. The summary of the obtained results reflects benefits from implementation of the proposed solutions.

The paper outlines the methodology of virtual design of a foundry plant as a system. The most important stage in the procedure involves the development of a model defined as a set of data about the system. Model development involves two stages: defining the model’s architecture and specifying the model data in the form of parameters and input-output relationships. The structure is understood as configuration of machines and transport units, representing the sub-systems and system components. As the main purpose of the simulation procedure is to find the characteristics of the system’s behaviour, the merits of the iterative method involving analysis, synthesis and evaluation of results are fully explored.

The work presents the results of examinations concerning the influence of various amounts of home scrap additions on the porosity of

castings made of MgAl9Zn1 alloy. The fraction of home scrap in the metal charge ranged from 0 to 100%. Castings were pressure cast by

means of the hot-chamber pressure die casting machine under the industrial conditions in one of the domestic foundries. Additionally, for

the purpose of comparison, the porosity of specimens cut out directly of the MgAl9Zn1 ingot alloy was also determined. The examinations

consisted in the qualitative assessment of porosity by means of the optical microscopy and its quantitative determination by the method of

weighting specimens in air and in water. It was found during the examination that the porosity of castings decreases with an increase in the

home scrap fraction in the metal charge. The qualitative examinations confirmed the beneficial influence of the increased home scrap

fraction on the porosity of castings. It was concluded that the reusing of home scrap in a foundry can be a good way of reduction of costs

related to the production of pressure castings.

The work presents the results of examinations concerning the influence of various amounts of home scrap additions on the properties of

castings made of MgAl9Zn1 alloy. The fraction of home scrap in the metal charge ranged from 0 to 100%. Castings were pressure cast by

means of the hot-chamber pressure die casting machine under the industrial conditions in one of the domestic foundries. The examinations

consisted in the determination of the following properties: tensile strength Rm, yield strength Rp0.2, and the unit elongation A5, all being

measured during the static tensile test. Also, the hardness measurements were taken by the Brinell method. It was found that the

mechanical properties (mainly the strength properties) are being improved up to the home scrap fraction of 50%. Their values were

increased by about 30% over this range. Further rise in the home scrap content, however, brought a definite decrease in these properties.

The unit elongation A5 exhibited continual decrease with an increase in the home scrap fraction in the metal charge. A large growth of

hardness was noticed for the home scrap fraction increasing up to the value of 50%. Further increasing the home scrap percentage,

however, did not result in a significant rise of the hardness value any more.

The work deals with technology Patternless process that combines 3 manufacturing process mold by using rapid prototyping technology,

conventional sand formation and 3D milling. It's unconventional technology that has been developed to produce large-sized and heavyduty

castings weighing up to several tons. It is used mainly in prototype and small batch production, because eliminating production of

models. The work deals with the production of blocks for making molds of gypsum and gypsum drying process technology Thermomold.

Into blocks, where were made cavities by milling were casted test castings from AlSi10MgMn alloy by gravity casting. At machining of

the mold cavity was varied feed rate of tool of cemented carbide. Evaluated was the surface roughness of test castings, that was to 5

micrometers with feed from 900 to 1300 mm/min. The dimensional accuracy of castings was high at feed rate of 1000 and 1500 mm/min

did not exceed 0.025 mm.